What OSC’s Hatch Act updates mean for federal employees

during election years federal employees always have to be a little bit more aware of the Hatch Act you know no politics or politicking while on the job this year there's more than usual reason to pay attention to the hatch Shack rules the office of special Council has come out with a bunch of new compliance updates ahead of the presidential election this fall here with the details Federal News Network Drew fredman and there's a lot of changes they've put out here one has to do with White House officials I think they're working on the record of the last few terms here what will that change do through that's right Tom that is one of the more notable changes I would say from osc and in practice the change will mean that White House staff who are in violation of the Hatch Act will be deferred to the Merit systems protection board rather than directly to the president that's the same standard that most career federal employees are already held to so the idea here and what osc is saying is that essentially it's going to bridge or make equal those two different groups White House senior staffers and just any federal employee so most Senate confirmed officials are exempt from the enforcement from mspb but White House staffers are not and those changes aim to just align the two have there been some recent violations from senior White House officials Hatch Act violations yes for sure I think that is one of the reasons that osc is decided to issue this new advisory opinion and make some of the changes that they did back during the Trump Administration there were reports that at least 13 White House officials were found in violation of the Hatch Act but they didn't receive any repercussions for their actions more recently during the Biden Administration you also had former white house chief of staff Ron CA who violated the Hatch Act by retweeting a political group's post on his official Twitter account so even something like that can be a violation of the Hatch Act there's a lot of little detailed things and nuances but in all of those cases osc didn't pursue any disciplinary action of those violations so I think that is part of the reason why you're seeing this kind of harder line or harder stance against White House officials from osc now all right and there's some other changes too that osc came out with tell us more about those so one of them uh talks specifically about former federal employees so generally osc has only been uh looking into cases for active federal employees but now people who used to work for the government uh don't anymore but maybe they committed a hatch acted violation or were alleged to be committing a violation when they were a government employee now they can be uh charged as well a lot of those repercussions that federal employees face are they could potentially be fired you can get a grade reduction you can also pay up to $1,000 in a fine and now those same you know I think that's one of the questions that's coming up is how would those apply to former federal employees of course you can have uh the fine come up but I think what it's going to mean is that they wouldn't be able to if they for example wanted to go back into government work wouldn't be able to uh for the foreseeable future wow so some pretty tough stuff there yes and the osc has something to say about political candidate memorabilia Maga hats and Biden bonnets that kind of thing that's right so there are already rules about uh different political parties displaying a party memorabilia at the office uh and that includes of course not just in the office but teleworking or working from home if you can see something in the back of your meeting screen that counts as well uh but now OS is changing the rules for specifically political candidates not just political parties and they're essentially just making the rules even or equal or the same uh between different those different factors so now basically the change is that there's a yearr round prohibition on political candidate displays uh not just before election day but also just year round so just making it more equal and probably maybe in the back of their mind there is the idea that this election in the last one are about as divisive as we've seen you know in this Century anyway or since the Civil War and just having that kind of activity can just simply ruin the comedy you might say in a workplace absolutely I think one of the things that osc pointed out in their advisory opinion was that political candidates are becoming much more aligned with political parties now and I think that was one of the reasons that they mentioned for the change another little interesting tidbit that uh was brought up was you know does this apply only to current political candidates or for example could you have a mug of Ronald Reagan sitting on your on your desk or something like that uh but osc and their advisory opinion says specifically it's meant for current or temporary political candidates so that's just one little uh Nuance for employees to pay attention to as well and we should also point out it's not just workplace rules the hatack bars federal employees from running for partisan office you can maybe Run for the proverbial dog catcher race that's not partis that's correct there's a lot of different uh little nuances or or pieces of the Hatch Act that federal employees should be paying attention to osc the office of special Council lists out all of this very helpfully on their website they have resources it's called the dos and don'ts of the Hatch Act they specify between those who are less restricted and those who are more restricted there's two categories of federal employees most fall under the less restricted category but you just want to make sure to check that resource and check up before uh election day but I think a lot of those changes are coming because of this of this timing here and you can do things politically but you just can't do them in connection with your identity as a fed you can't say hey I'm from the EPA and I'm in favor of of such and such even if it's after hours right yeah it's only if you're acting in your official capacity or if you're on the clock at at work that's where the restrictions apply but if you're just you know acting as a citizen and not as someone in official capacity then of course you can uh participate in in those events just don't mention your your official capacity because that kind of puts an imprimer on it sure and these changes are coming exactly now because of the election that seems to be a big reason why and you know just with the relatively new uh special council at ococ I think everyone who comes in issues their own reinterpretation of what the Hatch Act is and some of the other things that OC does so this is really a reinterpretation looking at the same language that's been that's been around from the Hatch Act for quite some time now the law was passed I believe in 1939 so just a couple little tweaks here and there ahead of election season all right a new deal for the New Deal era law federal news Network's Drew fredman thanks so much thank you and check out her story at Federal newws network.com