Norton's Second Hatch Act Bill to Create Regional Parity for Federal Employees Living in D.C.

Norton's Second Hatch Act Bill to Create Regional Parity for Federal Employees Living in D.C.

September 10, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that Norton would introduce legislation when Congress reconvenes next week to give the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the authority to exempt the District of Columbia from the federal Hatch Act's prohibition on federal employee participation in local partisan elections. OPM now permits participation by federal employees in political campaigns as or on behalf of an independent candidate in local partisan elections only in certain Maryland and Virginia towns in the immediate vicinity of the District and for towns in which the majority of voters are federal employees. When the Hatch Act was passed in 1940, OPM's predecessor agency was given the authority to exempt federal employees living in Maryland and Virginia towns near D.C. because large numbers of residents of those towns were federal employees, and if federal employees in such towns had not been allowed to participate in local elections, much of a town's population would have been denied the opportunity to participate in local affairs. Currently, federal employees residing in 47 Maryland jurisdictions, including Chevy Chase Village and Bethesda, 15 Virginia jurisdictions, including Alexandria, and 12 other municipalities across the United States are permitted to participate in local elections. However, OPM's predecessor agency was not given the same authority for the District of Columbia, probably because D.C. did not have local elections until the Home Rule Act of 1973.

Norton said, "This bill would remedy an omission that treats D.C. residents who work for the federal government differently than their federal colleagues in the region. The exemption is another remnant from before D.C was a self-governing jurisdiction. This change is part of my ongoing mission to wipe away all the disparate treatment of District residents left on the books." Norton expects a particularly important change this session with passage of her D.C. Budget Autonomy bill.

Another pending Norton home rule bill, the Hatch Act Reform Act (H.R. 1345), which the House passed last year and is now on its way to the Senate floor, would permit the District of Columbia, the only local jurisdiction where local government employees are under the federal Hatch Act, to enact and operate under its own local Hatch Act, eliminating confusion about application of federal law to local D.C. matters. Norton had criticized the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for inconsistently applying the federal Hatch Act to the District. The OSC, for example, has charged some Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (ANCs) running for D.C. City Council with violation of the Hatch Act, but not other ANCs, as well as some members of the current D.C. Council who ran for the Council from ANC positions. OSC does not recognize ANC commissioners as "elected officials," although they are elected officials under D.C. law and, of course, should be able to run for higher office in the District. The Congresswoman's bill removes only the federal Hatch Act jurisdiction that applies solely to the District of Columbia and requires the District to enact its own local Hatch Act. Council Chairman Vincent Gray has introduced a local Hatch Act, but the local Hatch Act cannot take effect until after the Norton bill becomes law.