Post 005 OSC Fails to report 1,181 Hatch Act violation determinations

OSC is the only federal agency authorized to investigate and prosecute Hatch Act violations.  The Hatch Act places significant limitations on use of government resources for advancing partisan political ends and also places some limits on federal employee's involvement with partisan political activities off-the-job.

OSC's failure to implement the laws it is responsible to implement - whether to uphold the merit principles of the civil service by protecting federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, or enforce Hatch Act, or deter agency non-compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - is near identical in practice.

As an investigatory agency, OSC has mandatory obligations to investigate allegations of violations of the law for which it has jurisdiction, determine "whether there are reasonable grounds to believe" the violations occurred, and appropriately report its determination, positive or negative, per 5 U.S.C. 1214(e). 

As a prosecutorial agency, OSC has complete discretion about seeking corrective and/or disciplinary action to correct the violations of the laws under its jurisdiction.   But it does not have the discretion to only report the (relatively few) violations it decides to prosecute.   But that is what OSC has done, since 1989 - only report its determinations of violations of law under its jurisdiction when it has made the discretionary decision to prosecute them, if it reports them at all.

OSC's November 9, 2007 response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about its record of documenting its determinations of Hatch Act violations demonstrates this - OSC's response states it has made 1,181 determinations of Hatch Act violations since 1989, without reporting a single one per 5 U.S.C. 1214(e).  OSC's cover letter states, without elaboration, that 5 U.S.C. 1214(e) reporting requirements do not apply to its Hatch Act determinations.  Since OSC has not made a single 1214(e) report since being created in 1989, apparently OSC thinks they do not apply to anything OSC investigates.

Because OSC fails to report its determinations of violations of the laws it is charged to implement in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 1214(e), the involved agency head does not have to certify a response to OSC, and a public record of OSC's 1214(e) report and the agency head-certified response is not created as described in  5 U.S.C. 1219.  Neither the Congress, press, nor public can obtain much information about OSC's determinations of violations of the laws for which it has jurisdiction, nor does the involved agency' have to respond to them.

A few weeks ago, the Senate had a hearing on OSC's implementation of the Hatch Act - how much more informed and effective culd Congressional oversight of OSC be if only OSC complied with the law by properly documenting its determinations of violations of laws under its jurisdiction?

For OSC Watch,

Joe Carson