Hillary Clinton isn’t just embracing President Obama’s policies in the tougher than expected Democratic primary. In recent weeks, she’s been working closely with his Cabinet, too.
The Clinton courtship has at least one ethics watchdog on high alert, warning that they could end up breaking laws aimed at preventing the federal government from being overly politicized.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is the fourth member of Obama’s Cabinet to endorse Clinton for president in recent weeks. He joined Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, former Iowa governor and current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
Fox and Castro even hit the hustings for her in Iowa this month, and former Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black attorney general and one of the most high profile figures to serve in the Obama administration aside from Clinton, campaigned with her in South Carolina in mid-January.
Although high-level official officials can help on the margins with key interest groups, including Latinos, blacks, unions or Iowans, most aren’t household names and aren’t going to turn the election either way.
The more powerful message is clear: In the late primary quest for Democratic loyalists, Clinton wants to align herself with Obama’s legacy, his policies and his people.
The strategy sets her apart from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the insurgent Democratic socialist, who has sharply criticized Obama for too-timid polices in healthcare and taxes and blasted him and Clinton for taking campaign cash from big banks.
Relying on current Cabinet surrogates is fairly routine for presidential campaigns, but it isn’t free of legal pitfalls.
The Hatch Act prohibits most employees in the executive branch from engaging in partisan political activity. There’s a big exception for the president, vice president and other high-level officials, including Cabinet secretaries. But even they have to tread carefully and engage in the political activity only on personal time.
These department chiefs have wide latitude, however, on when that personal time occurs. It’s virtually at anytime as long as they’re careful not to promote the event or solicit donations using their government titles.
“Cabinet officials are in a category by themselves. As long as they do not engage in political activity on official time, they have wide discretion to endorse candidates and campaign,” Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, told the Washington Examiner.
To err on the side of caution, secretaries can have the presidential campaign or party committee pick up the tab for a political trip.
Many times, the department chiefs sidestep this issue by piggybacking campaign appearances onto official events, such as speeches promoting Obama policies. In those cases, the secretaries are supposed to have the campaign or party committee ante up for at least part of the costs, but it’s unclear if they ever do.
The formula used to decide who pays what for a mixed-event trip is a well-kept secret with little required public disclosure.
“The cost of that travel is pretty much secret and it’s almost impossible to figure out how they calculate it,” McGehee said.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel also rarely targets department chiefs for violations, but it’s not completely unprecedented.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ran afoul of the law when she made “extemporaneous partisan remarks” during a speech at a Human Right Campaign Gala in 2012.
Sebelius had said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton “needs to be the next governor of North Carolina.” She also rattled off a list of Obama administration accomplishments so far and said it is “imperative” that he win a second term.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found that Sebelius had violated the law by making the political comments in her official capacity as a federal employee, pointing out that the group had advertised the event using her HHS secretary title. Sebelius was forced to reimburse the Treasury Department for all the costs of the trip and press the Democratic National Committee to pick up at least part of the tab instead.
It’s a relatively loose legal area, however, and Cabinet secretaries, who enjoy wide discretion in determining whether they are participating in event on personal or official time, can easily get a little careless with their campaigning.
A nonprofit ethics group last week delivered a not-so-friendly reminder to Obama administration officials about the limits of their Clinton crusading.
Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney in the last Bush administration and director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, sent a letter to every Obama Cabinet secretary alerting them of their liability in engaging in political activities and the federal laws that exist to prevent “undue” partisanship in government.
“As a senior administration official, you have been entrusted with a tremendous responsibility to safeguard the welfare of the American people,” he wrote. “That responsibility includes the most stringent compliance with any and all ethics rules to avoid undermining the public trust by engaging in partisan politics.”
