WASHINGTON REPORT: A Deserved Veto

...sisyphos...

...A presidential circular, aimed at discouraging such activities, was issued...

...And then...

...It permits them to contribute money to political campaigns primary and general...

...As happens in such matters, the legitimate complaints were seized upon by opponents of Roosevelt, including Democrats such as Senators Carl Hatch of New Mexico and Millard Tydings of Maryland and Vice President John Garner of Texas...

...In 1939, Roosevelt himself sent to Congress a message urging that WPA employees be protected against political arm-twisting...

...The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using official authority or influence to interfere with an election...

...In other words, he's willing to take his knocks without using federal police to discredit opponents...

...Of course, proponents of this harmful bill congressional Democrats and federal employee unions with an exception or two put it another way...

...To defy supervisors who gave them political tasks was to risk being out on the street again in the country's worst Depression ever 25 percent of the labor force being jobless at one point...

...Some Democrats in Congress sensibly voted against passage of the bill in the first place, Senators Proxmire and Ribicoff, among them...

...In fact, however, Ford's correct...

...Earlier this month, he was certainly both correct and right...

...More than four-dozen vetoes are his during the twenty-one months of his presidency since August, 1974 when he succeeded his impeached predecessor who is commuting these days between San Clemente, his current home in this country, and Peking...

...Again, the majority opinion in the 1973 Supreme Court decision said it best: it has been "the judgment of Congress, the Executive and the country that partisan political activities by federal employees must be limited if the government is to operate effectively and fairly...

...The brave complained to their elected representatives - in the Congress...

...Proponents of the repealer bill argued that federal employees should have the complete array of political rights that others have...

...The bill, they point out, would permit federal civilian employees to take part in politics, as do Americans working, e.g., for General Motors (or Commonweal...

...WPA brass in towns around Boston were shown to be spending all their working time and weekends on political matters...

...These employees were expected to show their loyalty (and thanks for their being hired) by working for New Deal candidates...

...Were the bill to become law, its supporters also point out, federal employees could then run for local, state and federal offices as Democrats and Republicans...

...Beyond that, it prohibits such employees from taking an "active part in political management or political campaigns...

...the so-called Malik manual written during the Nixon administration...

...Congress can impose restrictions on those in public employment in order to assure an uninterrupted, impartial civil service whose keystones are integrity and efficiency...

...He said "no" to a greedy bill to remove protections for civilian employees of the executive branch of the federal government nearly 3 million of them against political pressures to support, or not support, candidates for federal office, particularly for president...

...In response to a heavy mail, the senators from Maryland and Virginia voted against the bill because their constituents, who work for the federal government in the Washington, D.C., area, oppose the bill, which was designed to repeal the Hatch Act...

...Legitimate grievances were translated into remedial law, the (Carl) Hatch Act...

...Ford has vetoed bills he should have signed into law...

...This took time from the jobs for which they were ostensibly hired...

...This sounds attractive and fair...

...The only way to prevent coercion of federal employees is to prohibit them from being able to take part in certain partisan political activities, as is now forbidden...

...The law came into being in part by strong action on the part of FDR's severest critics in the Congress...

...The investigatory Sheppard Committee, established by the Senate, reported authenticated cases of political coercion by WPA "supervisors" in ten states...

...One witness pointed out in testimony on the legislation virtually to repeal the Hatch Act that, in fact, it permits federal employees about as much political activity as the average citizen engages in generally...

...Obviously, the activities did not stop, because Jefferson wrote three years later to a member of his Cabinet: "I think the officers of the federal government are meddling too much with the public elections...

...Actually, supporters of the bill didn't expect it to survive a Fordian veto...

...The bill, based on the same members voting on overriding the veto as voted to pass the bill in the first place, was short six votes in Senate and 29 in the House...

...A reading of the record shows that the Roosevelt administration in the late 1930s expected the increasing number of federal employees to sing for their supper...

...State and local government employees were also subject to the Hatch Act, although restrictions upon them were materially lifted two years ago...

...The latter professed to be concerned that Roosevelt was running for a third-term as president, No one, of course, ever had been elected three times as president...

...If these prohibitions are removed, what will happen soon is that permitted activities will become required...

...However, of course, the bill needed support by two-thirds of both the Houses and Senate members voting to override the President's veto...

...Opponents of the Hatch Act carelessly talk about the act making "second-class citizens" of federal employees...

...The Supreme Court three years ago ruled the Hatch Act was constitutional...

...The bill had needed only a majority to be approved in both the House and Senate...

...In the late 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded 3 million public jobs, almost as many jobs as there were Americans in Jefferson's time...

...In its decision this majority said it is in the best interest of the country, "indeed essential, that federal service should depend upon meritorious performance rather than political service and that the political influence of federal employees on others and on the electoral process should be limited...

...From time to time, since the first years of the Republic, there have been efforts to curtail activities of federal employees paid to work not to politick...

...The Hatch Act permits federal employees to talk, write and drink political opinions...

...The majority of the justices took the position that no constitutional provision, including the First Amendment, prohibits the Congress from passing a law to bar federal employees from political conduct...

...But, in the doing, he's shown, for better or worse, he isn't reluctant to exercise this presidential power of his...

...In 1801, Thomas Jefferson, as President, said he "has seen with dissatisfaction officers of the general government taking on various occasions active parts in the election of public functionaries...

...However, there's more to it than that...