Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech to last week’s GOP convention sent a number of left liberals over the edge. They claimed it was a violation of the Hatch Act.
Pompeo is secretary of state and delivered a political speech while on a trip during which he inevitably represented the United States in a foreign country.
Then again, if Pompeo’s appearance was funded by the Republican Party and not taxpayers, and if he wasn’t referred to with the appellation “secretary,” then who’s to say he cannot do the same as the six Cabinet secretaries who gave speeches at Democrats’ 2012 convention? The fact that no secretary of state had addressed a convention previously does not suggest it is forbidden.
The Hatch Act of 1939 confuses most people and could use an overhaul. It was initially a response to corrupt patronage politics and kickback schemes within President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. It was intended to prevent government resources from being put to political purposes.
Today, the Hatch Act prevents specific classes of “restricted” federal workers, mostly law enforcement and intelligence employees, from engaging in almost any political activity. It also limits what other federal and federally funded civil servants can do, with the chief aim of preventing government resources from being used to campaign or affect election outcomes. Under the Hatch Act, ordinary government employees can get into trouble for political social media activity on the clock, for example, and for forwarding emails to their colleagues about politics.
To make things more confusing, individual agencies can issue their own policies. Pompeo’s State Department issued guidance in 2019 for Senate-confirmed appointees, dictating that “Senate confirmed presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.” Pompeo clearly didn’t follow that guidance. But does it apply to him? Should it? Given that it’s just department guidance, can he make an exception for himself?
Meanwhile, even those rules that unambiguously apply to cabinet secretaries are rarely enforced. Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, endorsed two candidates for office while speaking in her official capacity at an official, government-funded appearance in North Carolina. The Office of Special Counsel issued a report faulting her for violating the Hatch Act’s prohibition on “using official authority or influence to affect the results of an election.” But no noteworthy action was taken against her.
The question was more ambiguous when Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro was interviewed by Katie Couric in April 2016. He tried to juggle answers to questions about both his endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic 2016 race and official HUD policy. In OSC’s opinion, he “impermissibly mixed his personal political views with official agency business despite his efforts to clarify that some answers were being given in his personal capacity,” as a letter from the special counsel put it.
Yet this application of the law seems fraught with problems, as it essentially blames Castro for Couric’s interview questions. Should the law try to force public officials to be evasive in wide-ranging media interviews, insisting on staying on one topic and avoiding another?
In the background of all this, ordinary government employees can be fired, demoted, or suspended for months without pay for offenses that seem trivial, whereas few rules and no punishments apply to their bosses.
The Hatch Act is a mess. Its provisions should be enforced equally after being seriously reformed to correspond with reality and reasonableness.
