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stated that "it is of no concern of Government what an

employee does in his spare time unless what he does impairs efficiency or other facets of the merits of his */ job. The removal of restrictions on voluntary political activity by federal employees is not likely to adversely affect the character of the Federal civil service.

The issue before you really is a test of where Congress stands on the First Amendment. The division on the question should not be along liberal/conservative or party lines, but rather on the perceived importance of the First Amendment. If you agree with us that, as the Supreme Court has so often said, the freedom of speech and association is the foundation of the Bill of Rights, and without which all of the other constitutional rights cannot exist, you will support H.R. 10. Only if one relegates

those freedoms to a lower place in the hierarchy of important values that you, as senators, must deal with daily, can the status quo be defended. The American Civil Liberties Union believes that the First Amendment requires lifting of restrictions from free political speech and association of our millions of Federal employees.

*/ United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, supra, at 597.

Senator SASSER. Our next witnesses are Mr. Donald W. Helm, and Mr. Victor Cunigilo, president and acting executive director and member of the board of directors of the Federal Executives League.

TESTIMONY OF VICTOR CUNIGILO, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, FEDERAL EXECUTIVES LEAGUE

Mr. CUNIGILO. Our president, Don Helm, was unable to be here. I am Victor Cunigilo, member of the board of directors and act as the executive director of the organization.

The statement that I hope you have, Senator, has been prepared primarily by myself, and just to identify myself, briefly, I have spent some 37 years in Government service, primarily with the Internal Revenue Service.

I talk of the real world of the civil service, not theoretically. I think that should be of interest to you, Senators.

The Federal Executive League was organized in October 1974, primarily to combat the abuses in the civil service. It was organized by a group of senior civil servants who were concerned with the various inroads made into the civil service system.

The organization grew rapidly until it reached a total of some 600 members. These members are at the senior level, the executive level, grade 15 and above. We have no paid employees other than a parttime secretary.

My work with the organization is on a voluntary basis. I am now retired from the IRS and I devote a good part of my free time to the organization.

I think our statement pretty well documents our concern. We have seen the political corruptions and manipulation of the civil service system, primarily on the part of those who are in the organization, in the civil service system as political appointees or somehow were certified by the civil service to be accepted by the civil service system. We point out in our statement the various abuses that have occurred over the years. I do not think there is any need for me to repeat them, Senator, but I would like to mention the solution that we have proposed which we think will correct many of the abuses in the civil service system which are going on even to this day.

We have proposed that the government establish an executive career system, an executive career system that will select and train the top managers in the civil service.

Senator STEVENS. Pardon me, Mr. Cunigilo.

Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt. I have a vote on another markup amendment of mine, as a matter of fact. so I will have to leave. I hope you will excuse me. I do have some questions to submit to the witnesses. if I may do that.

Senator SASSER. Certainly.

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much.

Senator SASSER. You may proceed.

Mr. CUNIGILO. This system is now being considered by the Civil Service Commission along with five other models and the expectation was that the executive career system program would be submitted

to Congress in the near future. Our understanding is that it has been side-tracked for some time. My suggestion to the committee is that the committee study this system and we will be happy to work with any of your members or staff in drafting a legislative proposal that would strengthen the Federal civil service system rather than weaken it as this bill does.

Let me just give a brief history of the IRS, Internal Revenue Service, for the record, Senator.

If you recall, the Internal Revenue Service, back in 1952, this is maybe ancient history to you, suffered from a series of political scandals which were prompted primarily by political appointees

Senator SASSER. I remember that.

Mr. CUNIGILO. You remember that. In those days, Senators, the directors of the Internal Revenue were called collectors of Internal Revenue, and they were political appointees, and these political appointees really got the IRS in hot water. It resulted in scandals in

1952.

As a result of those scandals, the IRS was reorganized and one of the prime elements of the reorganization was that the top managers in the IRS would be selected on the virtue of their experience and competence, that we would remove the political hats from these positions of importance, and that is what happened gradually over the next few years, the so-called collectors of Internal Revenue became Directors of Internal Revenue. They were selected for these positions after they graduated from the IRS' executive development and management program which was a program to select, train and develop the top managers in the IRS. This program has been the model for other agencies. It has served as the basis for our proposal for the Civil Service Commission which we now call the executive career system.

The IRS is the result of the reorganization and its program, to place our top people in the organization from the executive development program. left the IRS virtually free of scandal until Watergate. Watergate did occur, it did corrupt some of the people in the IRS, unfortunately. But the point I want to make is that the IRS with this kind of career system were able to appoint talented, and intelligent, and loyal and nonpartisan officials to run the agency, from a financial standpoint, in the Government service.

We managed to survive Watergate, but I do not think we can manage to survive this bill if it is enacted into law. I think we have the support of other organizations that are interested in good government and good government going, and the National Civil Service League has come out against the changes in the Hatch Act as has

common cause.

What we think should happen is that the Hatch Act should be strengthened, nowhere in the past few years has there been any prosecution of someone who violated the laws and attempted to corrupt the civil service system. We have referred and other organizations have referred countless cases to the Congress.

Congressman Henderson, when he was head of the House committee, did forward certain information to the Department of Justice. As far as we know nothing has happened. We feel that the organization that we represent, has the best position to know what goes on in the civil service system.

I, myself, have maintained contact with Federal employees in six cities where I served in Federal service, both at the top level and at the professional level. I have heard not one criticism of the way the Hatch Act operates. The criticism, if it was made, was that it did not have strong teeth in its enforcement. This is what we need, Senator, more than anything else.

My statement gives you great detail, Senator, and I am free to answer any questions that you may have.

Senator SASSER. Thank you.

Let me ask you this question-If a Federal executive wanted to do so under the present Hatch Act laws, if a Federal executive wanted to coerce an employee, what in the present law would prevent subtle coercion?

Mr. CUNIGILO. If he wanted to coerce the employee, in what respect, to get more work out of him, yes.

Senator SASSER. I am talking about political coercion-trying to encourage an employee to be active politically, to make a political contribution, say.

Mr. CUNIGILO. All I can say, Senator, in all my 37 years' experience, it has not happened with a career official. The coercion has happened when you had a political appointee above the career official, or one who was in the Federal service for approximately 2 years, which is the average tenure of the noncareer people in the Federal service.

They are not in here to protect the civil service system, Senator. They are in there for self-interests, whatever it may be. The career official does not attempt to coerce employees, at least that has been my experience.

Senator SASSER. Well, you say in your statement that the Hatch Act has worked well in your judgment to keep politics out of the civil service. Yet you also allude to the abuses of the civil service which were uncovered during the Watergate period, and also to abuses in the IRS 1951-52. Now, what in the present Hatch Act prevents those abuses?

Mr. CUNIGILO. People did not have the guts to take action against those who have attempted to corrupt the system. But relatively speaking, looking over the years, at least in the IRS, Senator, we have been free of that type of political corruption, after the scandal in 1952, when the reorganization took place thereafter. I think Watergate is an unusual period in our history, and I hope to God that it does not happen again for another 50 years, if ever.

Senator SASSER. You advocate in your statement that sanctions against coercion now in the Federal Code should be strengthened, yet you also say that we should not loosen the restrictions on political activity by Federal employees.

Now, are you of the opinion that there can never be written a statute strong enough to protect the employee from coercion while still allowing a Federal employee to exercise his or her full political rights? Mr. CUNIGILO. I think the real world is such that that will not happen. Senator, whether it is under the present system or with the change in legislation, as long as we have political appointees in the Federal Government, it is going to be subtle, persistent political pressure on the career civil servant. The only way we can protect against it is by strong sanctions, and even then, it is just relative, Senator,

we can eliminate a good part of it, but not eliminate it completely— human beings being what they are.

Senator SASSER. Well, we appreciate very much your being here this morning and presenting your views to the subcommittee, and the staff may have additional questions which they would like to submit to you at a later date in writing, and we appreciate very much your prompt response.

Thank you for appearing.

Mr. CUNIGILO. Thank you, Senator. [The prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE FEDERAL EXECUTIVES LEAGUE

As President of the Federal Executives League I am deeply concerned with the legislative proposal to repeal the Hatch Act. The House bill, H.R. 10, has already been approved, while the Senate's copy of the House bill, S. 80, is still pending and is considered too close to call. I judge these proposals to be attempts to weaken the federal civil service system at a time when it needs to be strengthened and revitalized.

The operation of the federal government has reached a critical nadir in its history. The Watergate scandal, the conviction of top government officials, the documented abuses in the civil service system, the mismanagement and corruption of federal agencies, have convinced the news media and the public that the people who run the federal government cannot be trusted. Public opinion polls rate federal bureaucrats as inefficient, lazy, overpaid and self-perpetuating. Congressmen have received the same devastatingly low rating from the people. The new administration has capitalized on this public feeling by treating the bureaucrats as convenient scapegoats for the serious problems it sees throughout the federal government. No doubt about it, the federal bureaucrats are on the defensive. And the federal civil service system is in jeopardy.

The Federal Executive League was organized in October 1974 to provide a vehicle for civil service managers and professionals to express their views, to improve their public image, and most importantly, to protect and promote the civil service. It is the only organization of its kind that represents top level career officials, both active and retired. In its brief history, the League has been in the forefront in helping to raise the federal pay ceiling; it has exposed the techniques used in recent years to politicize the civil service system; it has attacked past administrations for converting career positions into political patronage jobs; it has developed a legislative proposal to select, train and evaluate federal officials called the Executive Career System; it is presently opposing the proposal to publicize personal financial data of super-grade officials. These highlights are mentioned to illustrate the League's activity in supporting the integrity of the civil service system.

The Executive Career System proposal sets forth our basic philosophy of management at the federal level. Simply stated, it is the League's position that the federal government is floundering badly in many areas because the federal career executives are not permitted to manage and administer operations up to the department level. Rather, political appointees and selectees, whose average tenure in federal service is less than two years, are put in key positions in government and during their short stay often generate instability and do more harm than good. This is not unexpected, since these political appointees were recruited, in most cases, from law firms, advertising agencies, brokerage houses, universities, and partisan campaign organizations. We need experienced managers who have already demonstrated competence in working within and running large organizations, who are dedicated to fulfilling their public trust over the long run, and whose integrity is beyond question. The career civil service has thousands of these managers. We must find ways to use this tremendous resource effectively.

With the above background, the League's position on the repeal of the Hatch Act is more understandable. The genesis of the Hatch Act is also relevant. Career employees have been prohibited from engaging in political activity for many years. The Pendleton Act of 1883 banned the giving of political contributions by career employees. This was followed by an Executive Order issued by President