Norton Bill Giving D.C. Residents who are Federal Employees Equal Treatment Under the Hatch Act Has Taken Effect, This Week

WASHINGTON, DC – The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that the final rule making the District of Columbia a designated locality under the Hatch Act, which permits federal employees who live in D.C. to run for partisan political office in local elections as independents, has taken effect this week, beginning Monday. Until Norton's Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act was enacted last year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) did not have the authority to permit federal employees living in the District to seek local partisan office. The city did not have local elections when OPM was given this authority for other jurisdictions in the 1940s. Currently, federal employees who live in 75 Maryland and Virginia cities and towns have such authority. The Norton bill allowed OPM to issue a rule granting the authority to the District of Columbia, which like the designated Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions, has a large numbers of federal employees.

"D.C. was denied self-government until the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, and federal employees who resided in D.C. continued to be denied equal treatment under the Hatch Act until the implementation of my bill," Norton said. "With the rule taking effect Monday, should they choose, our dedicated federal employees will now have the opportunity to serve their fellow citizens in a new capacity, and the District will benefit from their participation in the local political life of the city."

Last year, after a 21-year fight for D.C. equality under the Hatch Act, Norton's D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act, which gave D.C. the home-rule right to operate under its own local Hatch Act, instead of the federal Hatch Act, was also signed into law. That Norton law requires that D.C. government employees be treated the same as all other state and local government employees under the federal Hatch Act. Previously, D.C. government employees had been treated as federal employees under the federal Hatch Act. D.C. has passed its own local Hatch Act.

Published: December 13, 2013