-2 law. They accept the terms of their employment voluntarily and enjoy greater job security in return. They fear political coercion and discrimination far more than they covet the chance to run for partisan office, to attend a political convention, or to manage a political campaign. Their sheer numbers and unique status make them easy marks for unethical politicians and political organizers. At the same time that these three million employees are covered by the Hatch Act, they are also covered by the merit system. The civil service is more institutionalized today than in the 1930's. Merit principles are fixed in our sense of ethics. But none of this suggests that the merit system is any less vulnerable to abuse. The House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service just last year investigated and reported on widespread merit abuses for political reasons and on the Civil Service Commission's inability to deal with those abuses. How can we reason that the Commission and the merit system are now suddenly strong enough to withstand the new political pressures which H.R. 10 would unleash? Let us examine those pressures and their potential impact on the federal employee, on the general public, and on the administrative machinery of government. IPMA is unaware of any survey of federal employees to determine how many would likely run for elective office, manage a political campaign, or actively campaign for a partisan candidate. Voter participation statistics are irrelevant because federal employees can and do vote. It is IPMA's opinion, however, that relatively few federal employees would exercise the maximum political rights restored to them by H.R. 10. Yet every federal employee would feel its impact on the job. Employees, as well as public programs, would be labeled politically. The appearance of favoritism or discrimination based on political affiliation would be commonplace. Decisions having preferential or adverse impact on anyone would be seen and reported as politically motivated. Employees would second guess and mistrust the intent of superiors or co-workers holding different political views. At the same time, many would seek to ingratiate themselves with those of like political persuasions. The bureaucracy would divide against itself. The "ins" would underutilize the "outs." A shadow bureaucracy of politically motivated leakers, grievants, and malcontents would interfere with government operations. Truly, a change of Administration would be a day of reckoning. The impact of H.R. 10 will go beyond the confines of the federal bureaucracy. State and local governments following the federal model might change thier laws on political activities thus extending the negative impact of H.R. 10 to a much larger group of public employees. The public at large will suffer the consequences. In my testimony before the House Subcommittee on Civil Service, I stressed IPMA's concern that H.R. 10 would shake public confidence in -3 government operations and in public officials by leading to apparent conflict-of-interest situations. H.R. 10 has since been amended in the House: - to restrict from political activity employees whose work to prohibit federal employees from soliciting political These amendments eliminate many but not all of the apparent conflictof-interest situations which would have resulted from the original bill. These changes are good as far as they go; but, in fact, the political activities of all federal employees should be restricted and H.R. 10 defeated. The bill would now create two classes of federal employees, restricted and non-restricted, and two subclasses of non-restricted employees: those who can solicit political contributions and those who may not. The latter distinction is defined differently in two sections of the amended bill. One section prohibits solicitations from citizens who come under the jurisdiction of the employee's agency. The other more narrowly prohibits solicitation from citizens who are seeking favors from the individual employee. These distinctions will further confuse federal employees as to their political rights. Furthermore, it is impossible to control solicitations of political contributions by source. If a federal employee works on a political campaign, he or she may be asked to telephone a list of voters, to conduct a door-to-door canvass of a neighborhood, to run a campaign booth at a shopping center, to work on a fund raising event, etc. How can the employee possibly know in advance what business a prospective contributor may have pending before what agency? The prohibitions, protections, and safeguards in H.R. 10 guard only against the most overt dangers in liberalizing the Hatch Act. H.R. 10 will not only unleash allegations of political coercion for the Civil Service Commission to adjudicate, it could unleash hundreds of discrimination complaints based on political affiliation, grievances, adverse actions and appeals. Existing laws, Executive Orders and Civil Service Commission regulations govern these situations. Anyone familiar with the procedures for processing discrimination complaints, employee grievances, conflict of interest rulings, or adverse action appeals, takes little 97-222 O - 78 - 16 -4 heart in the safeguards of H. R. 10. They know how difficult, and costly it is to prove or disprove allegations of intent. A single discrimination case may last two years and cost the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. The potential costs to the taxpayers are staggering. While H. R. 10 does not authorize new expenditures, it will force the reallocation of existing appropriations to cover the costs of investigations and adjudications. The greater the freedom, the more difficult it is to define its limits. The line between permissable and prohibited action in H.R. 10 is difficult to draw and would be impossible to enforce. If employees misunderstand the provisions of the Hatch Act, they most certainly will also misunderstand the provisions of H.R. 10. IPMA views H.R. 10 as a trade-off between full political rights exercised by a few and a direct cost to the public in protecting its rights to impartial government and in protecting the rights of all federal employees to impartial treatment. H.R. 10 is not worth that cost. Senator SASSER. We will be in recess for approximately 15 minutes to allow the committee members to vote. [Whereupon, the hearing was in short recess.] Senator SASSER. The committee is in session. Our next witness is Mr. Jon Minarik, director of congressional affairs, Public Service Research Council. TESTIMONY OF JON MINARIK, DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS, PUBLIC SERVICE RESEARCH COUNCIL, ACCOMPANIED BY DAVID DENHOLM, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Mr. MINARIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Accompanying me is Mr. David Denholm who is the executive vice president of the organization. We would like to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to present our views on this important legislation. We would simply like to highlight some of our more salient points and also hope to respond to some of the questions the committee put to some of yesterday's witnesses. As our testimony points out, the attempts to alter the Hatch Act are not desired either by the rank and file bureaucrat or the American people. In fact, both overwhelmingly oppose the proposed alterations. Earlier today, there was a mention of a survey taken by American University on this issue. That survey, however, was a Washington, D.C.-Residents-only, and is passed off by the sponsors as one showing national support for the attempts to overhaul the Hatch Act. Consequently, Mr. Chairman, the only survey of reliability that shows the national attitude on this issue is the one attached to our testimony today, that taken by Decision-Making Information of Santa Ana, Calif., last year which shows-and the demographics and the question itself are included in the back of the testimony-and it points out that 74 percent of the American people oppose the proposed alterations, and 73 percent of governmental employees oppose the proposed changes in the act. In the area of pressures placed upon the rank-and-file Federal worker, we are convinced that the penalties written into H.R. 10, S.80, or S.980 are insufficient. Beyond that, however, are the very real possibilities that subtle yet inescapable pressures will occur should the law be changed. As our written testimony points out, in two specific instances the types of pressure that can be brought to bear on individuals by unions. or others is not insignificant. We submit that by looking at the case of Mr. Tiso Anthan, one of the cases in our written testimony, pressures of this type occur more often than we suspect. Many of those who undergo such pressures, however, lack the courage and strength of Mr. Anthan. Consequently, before this committee makes its final determination on the merits of these bills, it should look into various types of coercive tactics that may now occur during the normal course of business within the Federal Government, and then wonder at the types that may happen if these bills are passed. Yesterday, Senator Stevens was concerned about the availability of the names and addresses of the Federal employees to the public in general and to private groups in particular. Because of his concern in this area, we took the liberty to find the answer to his question and to respond to that today. On pages 84 and 85 of the Code of Federal Regulations, volume 5 of administrative personnel, we can see that, indeed, if these laws were passed, a group could in a boilerroom-type operation not only secure the names of the Federal workers but also, by simply cross-checking with the telephone directory, the seekers could get the addresses of these workers. Some proponents argue that coercion already occurs in the private sector, and therefore this is no reason to prevent the public employee from taking part in politics. As Mr. Schaffer pointed out, because the Federal worker represents the Government and therefore has a responsibility to the citizen who is his real employer, we submit that that argument is fallacious; that because private workers are subject to coercion, the Federal worker should also be allowed to take part in partisan politics. Furthermore, in the area of sensitive or restricted positions under these acts, it is difficult at best to determine who would still be prohibited from political activity. In H.R. 10, we find that determination left up to the Civil Service Commission. In S.80, restricted positions are listed and then in effect negated. We feel that before the committee makes its recommendations on these bills, it should direct the Civil Service Commission to make a study and report its findings as to what a sensitive or restricted position is. In this way, everyone will have a clear idea of who is restricted and who is not. Without going any further into the committee's valuable time, we will now entertain any questions the committee may have. Senator SASSER. Assuming that a majority of Federal employees would not want the Hatch Act reform, should that majority be able to deny the rights of the minority? I would be interested in getting your views on that. Mr. DENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer that question. I do not think the majority rule has any place, and as the Supreme Court said some time ago, certain rights are placed beyond the reach of the majority, and it is not really a question of majority rule at all. It is really a question of what is sound public policy regarding certain types of political activities by certain people in our society, and historically, going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson in 1801, Federal employees, officials of the Federal Government, have been proscribed from participating in electioneering. Jefferson enunciated that in 1801. The Pendleton Act gave the Civil Service Commission the authority to enact those restrictions. During the life of the Pendleton Act, 3,000 restrictions were placed into regulations. Those were codified by the Hatch Act. This is not something that came up in 1939 as an emotional reaction to a few abuses in the Works Progress Administration. This is some |