 An article on the front page of the Knoxville News-Sentinel in June 1938. |
Trump and his henchmen don’t even pretend to adhere to it. This episode of Trump Inc. lays it out.
Perhaps you’ve never heard of the Hatch Act, or perhaps, like White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, you don’t seem to think it’s important.
To understand why this law is on the books, we went back to the political scandal that started it all, in 1938.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and his New Deal had put unemployed Americans back to work through the Works Progress Administration. But in Kentucky and several other states, WPA offices were mobilized for a different purpose: to support the election of FDR-loyal candidates. In the 1938 Senate primary race in Kentucky, that was incumbent candidate Alben Barkley.
A reporter for Scripps-Howard newspapers, Thomas L. Stokes, wrote a series of articles exposing the political corruption of the Kentucky WPA. Workers were intimidated into voting for Barkley out of fear of losing their jobs. Republican employees were coerced into re-registering as Democrats. “WPA foremen are passing out Barkley buttons, instructing their workers that they must vote for the Senator, and, in numerous cases, making support of his a prerequisite for jobs,” Stokes wrote.
Enter “Cowboy Carl” Hatch, Democratic senator from New Mexico. He proposed a new law, the Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, also known at the Hatch Act. The idea is simple: Federal workers should not campaign on the public dime.
For 80 years, federal employees have more or less adhered to the standards set by the Hatch Act, carefully separating out politicking from their daily policy responsibilities. While the act doesn’t apply to the president and vice president, past presidents have been careful not to mix policy and campaigning, to ensure taxpayers aren’t bankrolling their campaign events. Until now.
At least 13 White House officials have violated the Hatch Act. A WNYC analysis shows that Trump has spoken about Joe Biden or the coming election in half of his official presidential appearances since May. Sorry, Cowboy Carl.
He now manages to turn every public appearance into a campaign rally and his staff do the same.