A new leader in the Office of the Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said in a Politico op-ed on Monday that he would be closing a White House loophole that has allowed staffers there to violate the Hatch Act without repercussions.
Dellinger said that until now, the OSC referred violators of the Hatch Act who were White House staffers to the president for sanctions, but a lack of action in enforcing discipline has led to a decision to refer them to the Merit Systems Protection Board instead.
The president and vice president are exempt from the act, and so are Senate-appointed positions such as cabinet members.
The act prohibits federal employees from campaigning for political candidates or parties verbally, wearing t-shirts and carrying or displaying items that contain campaign slogans or candidates’ or parties’ names.
There was also less enforcement when federal employees did these things after Election Day rather than before it, but that has also been changed by the new guidance to reflect the prohibition being all year round.
“These enforcement changes should provide clear guidance and bright-line rules to federal workers and the public,” Dellinger said in the op-ed.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Jen Krausz
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://dailyconservative.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.