HATCH ACT 53 Stat. 1147 (1939); 54 Stat. 767 (1940)

The Hatch Act prohibits most federal employees from engaging in any of a broad range of partisan political activities. It was adopted in 1939, but its antecedents go back well into the nineteenth century. The act has twice been challenged on first amendment, vagueness, and over-breadth grounds, and has twice been upheld: Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers (1973) and United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947). Similar state legislation was upheld in broadrick v. oklahoma (1973).

Although public employee organizations are among the most formidable lobbies in Congress and state legislatures, laws like the Hatch Act severely restrict the individual employee's political activities. These restrictions have been justified as assuring impartiality in public service, preventing the incumbent party from constructing a political machine, and preventing coercion of public employees.

The Hatch Act cases contrast sharply with later burger court decisions such as buckley v. valeo (1976), protecting unlimited campaign spending, and first national bank of boston v. bellotti (1978), protecting corporate spending in ballot measure campaigns.

These decisions, in combination with the Hatch Act cases, suggest that, in the Burger Court's view, no liberty may be sacrificed to prevent unfair grasping of power by the use of concentrated wealth, but a great deal of liberty may be sacrificed to prevent unfair grasping of power by a mass-based device such as political patronage.

Daniel H. Lowenstein
(1986)

Bibliography

Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel 1968 A Commission Report.

Rose, Henry 1962 A Critical Look at the Hatch Act. Harvard Law Review 75:510–526.