The Hatch Act and the Political Activities of Federal Employee Unions: A Need for Policy Reform

Abstract

In the United States, political neutrality is widely regarded in traditional merit systems as integral to the impartial administration of federal laws and services. The 1939 Hatch Act is intended to protect such neutrality by limiting federal employees' rights to participate in partisan electoral activities. The act limits important first amendment freedoms available to other citizens, and thus, its salutary intent aside, continually arouses controversy. In fact, several recent legal developments add an intriguing new dimension to this debate that revolves around the act's potential restraint on union political activity. In 1984, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which prosecutes Hatch Act violations, precipitated this current controversy by issuing an unsuccessfully challenged advisory opinion to the effect that federal employee unions could not use federal employees for otherwise permissible nonpartisan voter registration drives if they (the unions) had already endorsed partisan political candidates. Federal employees participating in such drives would presumably be prosecuted and could face dismissal for violating the Hatch Act.' Furthermore, in February 1985, the Special Council initiated dismissal actions against three federal union presidents because they campaigned for Walter Mondale in 1984.2 The broad issue underlying these actions is the legal applicability-direct and indirect-of the Hatch Act to federal employee unions. This particular question affects not only these unions' role in partisan politics but also the future of unionism and labor relations in the federal service. It is particularly important to unions operating predominantly in the general schedule (GS) and wage grade (WG) federal service, because these civil service employees are denied