The lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections was pretty typical in terms of Hatch Act violations, according to the small, independent agency that oversees the law limiting the partisan political activity of government employees.
The Office of Special Counsel has received 98 Hatch Act complaints involving federal employees since May 1, said Zachary Kurtz, communications director at OSC. The complaints involved both career staff and political employees, he said.
“OSC opens a case file and looks into every Hatch Act complaint it receives,” Kurtz noted. “Not all of the 98 complaints received since May are still open. At this point, many have been resolved.”
He added that no particular agency “was remarkable with respect to the number of complaints we received. Anecdotally, this year did not differ much from [midterm] years past in a noticeable way.”
The top four allegations in complaints were: “use of official authority” to influence election results (39); “political activity on duty, in a federal room or building” (39); “candidacy” (27); and “solicitation” (14), according to Kurtz, who noted that some complaints had more than one allegation listed. Also, there weren’t any specific trends in the types of complaints OSC received in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Kurtz said.
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