New conduct guidelines prevent federal workers from mentioning impeachment - Polidicks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/30/new-warning-federal-employees-no-talk-resistance-or-opinions-about-impeachment-work/?utm_term=.9890bf618538 In a move that some ethics advocates say could be an opening to limit dissent, the federal government has issued new guidance for the political activity of federal government workers, warning that weighing in on impeachment or talking about “the Resistance” may constitute prohibited activity. The Office of Special Counsel is charged with enforcing the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work. The office, not to be confused with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, is run by Henry Kerner, whom President Trump nominated to the post. The unsigned “Guidance Regarding Political Activity,” which was issued Tuesday, uses a question-and-answer format as it seeks to clarify the types of actions and rhetoric considered political activity, and therefore prohibited at work. In a nod to the current climate, it stipulated that advocating for or against impeachment of a candidate for federal office would be considered political because of its implications for future elections, and that any use of terms like “resistance” and “#resist” would be construed as political activity. But union officials and some government watchdogs said they feared the guidelines could have wide-ranging effects on the nearly 3 million federal employees in the United States, as well as state and local government employees who work with federally funded programs. The ethics nonprofit American Oversight said the guidance raised “significant concerns” in a letter it sent to the office Thursday, urging it to withdraw the memo. In response to a request for comment, U.S. Office of Special Counsel Communications Director Zachary Kurz said in an email Friday: “Our Hatch Act unit is currently working on addressing some of the concerns raised in media reports and we will have a response with some clarification by later this afternoon.” Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight and an employee of the OSC from 2014 to 2017, said he felt the guidance probably crossed a legal line, saying the Hatch Act was meant to be narrowly focused on political activities around parties and candidates. Schwellenbach said he believed that the guidance could be successfully challenged in court on its constitutionality.

pretty sure this is not legal

DO NOT QUESTION THE PARTY!!! THE PARTY KNOWS BEST!!!

THE SAFE PLACE MUST BECOME SAFER

Trump is actively against the Constitution of the United States.

what's not legal is government employees describing themselves as 'a resistance' and actively trying to thwart governmental acts. they have a job to do... if they want to be political then government work is not for them. being a civil servant is being part of the machinery of the state. you're a cog, not some ebin dumbledore's army-esque hero of your own novel. if you're purposely not implementing government policy as stated then you're not fit for purpose and will be dismissed, you may even be prosecuted (at leas there in the UK). it's the same here in the UK. you are told on your first day that you may personally disagree with government policy, but it is not your place AT ALL to try and spin it your way. it's undemocratic and the polar opposite of what your function is. of course, I fully expect someone to argue trump's election was undemocratic, but the fact is that he was legally elected and nothing changes that.

Our freedom of speech is much larger in scope than the UK. Read the article there's expert lawyers saying this is illegal.

that boggles my mind. but haven't lawyers frequently argued that the bill of rights doesn't stand up, legally-speaking?

What, the Bill of Rights is supreme and applies to the federal government as well as the states. Currently the Supreme Court has determined that two main types of free speech aren't allowed. Speech that has the intent of instigating imminent lawless action, and speech where the government's interest far outweighs everything else like illegal porn. Speech is not only words here but actions like performance art and driving and gestures and campaign contributions and not even saying anything.

Eagerly anticipating the righteous outrage over free speech being curtailed that we see in threads about racist dipshits on social media.

so, surely those existing legal gateways would then cover government workers actively perverting government policy? i.e. not implementing legislation in the way the government intends being a breach of ethical law?

The law that governs the relation of government workers and the First Amendment is the Hatch Act, and until now it was used with the intent of preventing federal workers endorsing a political party. The agency that regulates this stuff, the Office of the Special Counsel doesn't have authority to change the interpretation of the law. Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings and the former top ethics lawyer in the Obama White House, said he found the guidance “very peculiar.” “It’s contrary to my understanding of the Hatch Act and its interpretation, which is confined to what’s more commonly understood as political activity — vote for or against a candidate,” he said. “This infringes into policy questions.” He too said he feared it could have a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of government employees and said he thought a legal challenge could be successful.

I can't debate someone who is an expert in the field, I wouldn't dream to, but as a UK civil servant, this law doesn't seem as sensationalist, egregious and draconian as the media is indicating. Maybe it's just our difference in culture. You've been very informative though, thank you @Borealis .

Afaik most federal workers here tend to vote Democratic because the Republicans have an interest in making them out of a job, Washington DC goes 90% Democrat because of the fact it's a city and has a lot of federal workers. Most federal workers wouldn't openly discuss politics, Trump, or impeachment on the job since they're professional anyway so the new law is just shit. If you actually interfere with what the government wants you to do you'll get fired unless you're in one of the jobs where it's super hard to be fired.

I can't tell what's worse - the possibility of dissent among subjects of the American crown, or the monarch's hesitance to crack down on them properly!

If that's the case, President Trump is guilty of repeated infractions of failing to implement duly-passed law. Like deliberately not putting sanctions on Russia after Congress forced him to sign a bill approving more. He signed the bill, he just never followed through. And that's before we even get into him attacking the implementation of the ACA and trying to hamstring it in any way he can through executive action because Congress couldn't pass an ACA repeal bill after spending a whole goddamn year trying to decide just how many American citizens they wanted to fuck over for health care. So, go ahead, set that precedent, we'll have discussions about impeaching the President for failing to uphold his oath of office on repeated occasions. If you don't do your job when you're supposed to, you get fired for cause, but that's not what the Hatch Act is supposed to cover. Especially with a complicit Congress who won't impeach you.

I don't really get how you can say that's undemocratic when those exact same views are held when working for dictatorships. It's not necessarily professional or conformist, I'll give you that.

How could it not? Constitutional Amendments (which the Bill of Rights comprises like the first ten or so) are basically the highest form of law the US has. Any lawyer arguing that they don't stand up in a legal sense is a fucking moron and it's a miracle they graduated college, let alone passed the bar exam.

amazing quote right here

Just because the same views are held by people working for dictators, does not excuse a government worker in a Western, democratic country, taking the law into their own hands and subjectively influencing policy. It *is* undemocratic because these government workers are flouting the policy of a democratically elected government. Just because people don't like Trump and the outcome of the last election, doesn't mean they are living under a dictatorship. The allusion is frankly laughable. Thanks. It's true. If you want to be political, go into politics. Work for an MP/congressman. Work for a lobbing group/charity/corporate relations office. Just don't go into a job where you will be expected to implement policy you might politically disagree with, because that isn't your remit. It's really very simple. In previous threads on FP, people have talked about how the right to carry guns is flimsy because the bill of rights is flimsy legally speaking. They might have been talking out of their ass. Also what you seem to not be understanding is I'm asking a question, which was kindly answered, not putting forth some blazing argument.

I can't really say because I don't recall seeing any of those arguments myself. I'm assuming they're specifically talking about the exact wording of the second amendment though in that case. It's not that the Bill of Rights has flimsy legal standing, just that the second amendment in particular has a choice of wording that's a bit more ambiguous than it really should have been. To be clear, the inflammatory part of that post of mine was directed at any lawyer stupid enough to actually argue that the Bill of Rights is flimsy rather than you. I was actually trying to address your question. (I may have come across more inflammatory than I intended though, I slept like crap and one of the first things I see after getting up is some idiot in another thread misinterpeting something I said despite having said the exact opposite of his interpretation didn't help me be less irritable.) I don't think it's laughable at all. Trump is actively trying to pervert our democracy and has made it quite transparently clear that he wants nothing more than to be a dictator. And Congress at the moment is very complicit in allowing him to continue to do so.

I don't know how it works over there, but the rules are different. Americans don't seem to understand the difference between 'government worker' and 'politician'/'political worker'. But I'm fairly sure there are different checks and balances for presidents and Trump won't be affected by whatever 'precedent' you think this sets. Think about it logically, if the Hatch act is supposed to stop government workers from acting politically, why would the law apply it to politicians? It's their entire job.

They were, the Amendments have legal standing the same as the original document. What's flimsy is the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. This is a long story. After the American government started in its current form until the Civil War the idea was that the Bill of Rights (These were added at the same time as the original document) only applied to the federal government, not the states. This changed starting with the Civil War and the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures equal protection under the law and since the 1930s the Supreme Court has held that the rights in the Bill apply to the states through a process called incorporation. But between the adoption of the 14th after the Civil War and the change in jurisprudence in the 30s they held that the Bill of Rights still didn't apply to the states, or at least most of them. (Incorporation was gradual) The 1876 case United States v. Cruikshank held that the 2nd Amendment doesn't ensure a right to own arms, but rather the right against the federal government taking arms. This was done for dubious reasons so that black people could be disarmed and couldn't defend themselves. Cruikshank set the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment for over a century, and until recently the 2nd was one of the least controversial amendments. This changed in the 2008 case DC v. Heller, in that the Supreme Court held that the 2nd Amendment does in fact ensure a right to own a gun but not unlimited. Then there was the 2010 case McDonald v. Chicago which held that the 2nd Amendment is incorporated to the states (DC is a unique district and this case cleaned up the uncertainty)

They were talking out of their ass. Our entire country is at the most foundational level defined by the U.S. constitution which lays out how it is structured. After that it was modified with amendments to that constitution based on issues that were considered so important that they needed to be core to the country's existence. The first ten of which, ratified soon after the constitution was ratified, are called the "Bill of Rights" and by and large define limitations on how the government can interfere with citizens, while later ones are also about more procedural and structural aspects as well. As they are amendments to the constitution, they are considered to be the absolutely most important aspects of the country and policy making.

I'm a federal employee. Orange man needs to be impeached fucking ASAP. come get me drumpf ;^)

Alright man, thanks for clarifying. Plus no worries, political discussions are often loaded with nuance and, as we all know, it's really hard to read text online and ascertain the author's true meaning unless it's *really* made clear. I don't know really how it is there on the ground. I recently spent 6 months in America, but admittedly that isn't too long. I don't even really have a great grip of American institutions and how the entire system works past a general understanding and google. What I mean by it being laughable is that it's not like the American government workers practicing #resist are Syrian government workers who are stopping Sarin gas attacks. They just don't seem to like current policy and Trump. I.e. it doesn't excuse them from their actions because there's a real grey area about 'what's best'. There is a moral line, somewhere, to resisting government actions that unequivocably go against citizens of the state, the people the civil servants truly serve, but I wouldn't say (from my limited perspective) that America is anywhere close to there yet. When it comes to the dictatorship question, the fact that Trump's position is contingent purely upon the Republican congress kinda confirms it's not a dictatorship. We all know America is more akin to an oligarchy, but I digress, Trump isn't anywhere near becoming a dictator. He's the idiotic fall guy for the republican party and people need to stop moaning so much about him and start thinking about that instead.

Meanwhile in 2011, dissent is good https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/112373/70ed6fa9-fcc6-4e06-838f-458a9d16c110/tea-party.jpg

It's just like when the Democrats have a majority the deficit matters but when it's Republicans suddenly its no big deal.

there's a lot of misinformation about the so called resistence. Trump's admin does not follow the rules for just about anything and circumvent the civil servants of their agencies at all points. the resistance is mainly civil servants complaining they have been cut out of policy decisions or the policy they've been told to implement has not been vetted and could very likely be illegal in some capacity, which is why they are even there in the first place, to draft and review policy and rules as well as implement them in accordance to the law.

https://youtu.be/iwqN3Ur-wP0