Stop ignoring the Hatch Act

The federal Hatch Act, which took effect in 1939, bars Civil Service employees in the executive branch of the U.S. government from engaging in political activities — such as playing “any active part” in political campaigns.

But President Donald Trump’s White House has not only refused to take seriously the line set in that law between government and politics, it has openly defied it.

During his first term his senior counselor at the White House, Kellyanne Conway, earlier a fixture in New York media as a GOP consultant, drew wide attention for that defiance.

Conway attacked the opponent of Trump’s preferred candidate for Senate in Alabama, Roy Moore, in public interviews. Later the Office of Special Counsel cited dozens of Hatch Act breaches and called for Conway to be fired.

Trump refused. He complained that enforcing the act would be “unfair.” He didn’t even reprimand her, and praised her partisan advocacy.

The nonpartisan organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed several Hatch Act complaints during the Biden administration, many regarding officials’ partisan-tilted online remarks.

Ethics training was generally ordered and warnings issued.

Trump’s second administration, however, shows no such commitment. CREW last fall noted that a handful of top-level Cabinet officials issued partisan statements condemning New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s campaign.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Fox Business that “the people of New York had better get off their butts and get out there and vote and make sure this communist doesn’t run New York City.”

Campaign speeches are not his job.

The president and vice president are exempt from the Hatch Act. They are elected leaders. But for appointees, a semblance of impartiality is expected in conducting the people’s business. Citizens need to be served regardless of party affiliation.

Former GOP Long Island Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who is now inspector general in Trump’s Labor Department, recently posted on social media a photo of himself at a charity event, posing alongside Jeanine Driscoll, the Republican candidate for his former 4th Congressional District seat.

Is he skirting the Hatch Act? D’Esposito has raised that concern before. For four months after he started his current federal job, he refused to say if he would run this year for his old seat, leading Democrats to suggest a breach. Now Driscoll is the candidate.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act to cap an earlier scandal in his own administration involving the political use of Works Progress Administration hires. At the time FDR called it “at least a step in the right direction” toward “decency in political campaigns.”

Eighty-seven years later, voters across the political spectrum need assurance more than ever that patronage and Civil Service workers are not assigned to perform as party shills. Making use of the Hatch Act, acknowledging its intent and exploring how to strengthen it could only help.