Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110252
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
In a 67-30 vote, the Senate passed amendments to the Hatch Act, which was enacted in 1939 in an effort to protect Civil Service workers from being coerced by their elected superiors to help their campaigns.
Under the amendments, the nearly three million federal workers covered under the Hatch Act could hold office in local, state and national political organizations, publicly endorse candidates, distribute campaign literature, organize phone banks and political meetings and solicit co-workers to donate to a federal employees political action committee to which the employee and the donor belong.
The activities would have to take place in the employees' off hours. The bill would still prohibit federal workers from engaging in political activities while on the job or soliciting campaign contributions from the public.
And they would still be barred from running for partisan political office, though even that restriction was dropped in a version of the legislation that the House passed last year.
After eight days of debate, 13 Republicans joined all 54 Senate Democrats in approving the bill. The measure will now go to conference with House members.
Both Virginia Senators, Republican John Warner and Democrat Charles Robb, voted for it.
A spokeman for President Bush said this week that he would veto the bill, one of two pieces of legislation under consideration by Congress that has drawn a veto threat in recent weeks.
The other bill, requiring companies to grant workers leave for family or medical care, was approved Thursday by the House.
"We believe that it politicizes the Civil Service in an inappropriate fashion," Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, said of the amendments to the Hatch Act.
"It makes them vulnerable to political manipulation as well as political solicitation."
by CNB