Here\u2019s a question about the shutdown submitted by an Associated Press reader, Deanna: <\/p>\n
Have agencies violated the Hatch Act by using Democrat-blaming language online in discussing the shutdown?<\/p>\n
Experts disagree on whether the Democrat-blaming language on the website of HUD<\/a> and various other government agencies<\/a> reaches the threshold of violating the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.<\/p>\n Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyer and law professor at Washington University, argues it does.<\/p>\n \u201cThese agencies are using federal resources, taxpayer-funded websites, to engage in partisan political messaging,\u201d she told The Associated Press in an interview. \u201cThe Hatch Act prohibits federal officials from using official resources that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, disagrees, telling AP the messages discuss the Democratic Party related to a policy difference rather than an election but still calling the postings \u201cwildly inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the Office of Special Counsel calling for an investigation into the messages for \u201capparent violations of the Hatch Act.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Do you have a question for AP<\/a> about the government shutdown? You can submit it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a question about the shutdown submitted by an Associated Press reader, Deanna: Have agencies violated the Hatch…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":277866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[1578,84,143623,90,57,86,49089,74505,3466,50,80,89,121682,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-277865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-sherman","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-government-policy","15":"tag-government-shutdown","16":"tag-kathleen-clark","17":"tag-language","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","21":"tag-u-s-government-shutdown","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115317607319683141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}