After 21-Year Fight, Norton Secures Hatch Act Equality for D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After a 21-year fight, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) went to the House floor today to speak for her District of Columbia Hatch Act Reform Act and her more recent Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act as D.C. gained full equality under the Hatch Act. Norton got her bills included in the Hatch Act Modernization Act of 2012 (S. 2170), which passed the House today, and now goes to the president for his signature.

First, under Norton's D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act, erasing the pre-home-rule treatment of the city, D.C. government employees will no longer be treated as if they were federal employees under the Hatch Act. Instead, D.C. government employees will be treated the same as other local and state government employees under the Hatch Act. In addition, D.C. government employees, like other state and local employees, will be governed by a local Hatch Act, as required by Norton's bill, which the city adopted in anticipation of passage of Norton's bill. Norton got the D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act through the House in 1993, but it stalled in the Senate. She succeeded in getting it passed in the House last Congress as well, pointing to confused and inconsistent results when the Hatch Act provisions that applied to federal employees were applied to D.C. government employees, but it stalled in the Senate again.

Her other Hatch Act bill, the Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act, authorizes the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to permit federal employees who reside in the District to run as independent candidates in local partisan elections. Under the Hatch Act, federal employees generally may not be candidates in partisan elections. However, in the 1940s, Congress gave OPM the authority to exempt federal employees in towns in Maryland, Virginia, and the immediate vicinity of D.C. from the Hatch Act's prohibition on federal employees running in partisan elections, so that towns with a high concentration of federal employees would not be deprived of having a significant percentage of their residents participate in local affairs. OPM did not have the authority to exempt federal employees living in D.C. because the city did not have local elections before the Home Rule Act of 1973. Norton will soon ask OPM to permit D.C.'s federal employees to run in partisan elections like the federal employees in 64 Maryland and Virginia towns are able to.

"The Hatch Act Modernization Act brings the District another step closer to the equal treatment and self-government we seek in all areas of American governance and life," Norton said. "Local government is in the best position to regulate political involvement in local government. I am grateful to Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), the lead sponsor of the bill, for including my D.C. equality bills in the Senate bill, as well as to Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over D.C. matters. My sincere thanks as well to Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over D.C. matters, for bringing to the floor our original Hatch Act bill along with the additional parity bill."

Published: December 19, 2012