Analysis
Why Ben Carson’s appearance in Phoenix was likely a violation of federal law
This article has been updated.
Right before Ben Carson took the stage at President Trump’s rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night, the announcer introduced him.
“The secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson,” the voice intoned, prompting cheers from the audience.
And, as simply as that, a law was likely broken.
There are a lot of ways in which the federal government could be used to reward political friends and allies, of course, appointments being just one example. But the power of the government can also be leveraged to political advantage. Imagine a candidate who appeared at a campaign rally to be endorsed by the heads of each branch of the armed forces, for example. That would carry a lot of weight.
In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act into law, a measure meant to preserve the impartiality of public servants. “The law’s purposes,” the Office of Special Counsel’s website explains, “are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.”
...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lation-of-federal-law/?utm_term=.867b959a2188
Why Ben Carson’s appearance in Phoenix was likely a violation of federal law
This article has been updated.
Right before Ben Carson took the stage at President Trump’s rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night, the announcer introduced him.
“The secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson,” the voice intoned, prompting cheers from the audience.
And, as simply as that, a law was likely broken.
There are a lot of ways in which the federal government could be used to reward political friends and allies, of course, appointments being just one example. But the power of the government can also be leveraged to political advantage. Imagine a candidate who appeared at a campaign rally to be endorsed by the heads of each branch of the armed forces, for example. That would carry a lot of weight.
In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act into law, a measure meant to preserve the impartiality of public servants. “The law’s purposes,” the Office of Special Counsel’s website explains, “are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.”
...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lation-of-federal-law/?utm_term=.867b959a2188
