Trump Guts the Hatch Act's Prohibition on Government Employees Campaigning for MAGA on Official Time

Apr 26, 2025

For 80 years, the Hatch Act has banned electioneering by government employees while they’re in the office or on the clock. Now the Trump administration is “reinterpreting” the Hatch Act in a way that guts it—but only if you’re MAGA.

The New York Times reports:

The Office of Special Counsel, an agency involved in enforcing the restrictions, announced the changes to the interpretation of the Hatch Act, a Depression-era law devised to ensure that the federal work force operates free of political influence or coercion. The revisions, a resurrection of rules that Mr. Trump rolled out at the end of his first term but that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. repealed, could allow for the startling sight of government officials sporting Trump-Vance buttons or “Make America Great Again” hats.
Critics have said the law was already largely toothless, and officials in the first Trump administration were routinely accused of violating it, with little punishment meted out. And the changes do not roll back Hatch Act restrictions entirely, but do so in a way that uniquely benefits Mr. Trump: Visible support for candidates and their campaigns in the future is still banned, but support for the current officeholder is not. …
The Office of Special Counsel issued other opinions on Friday that will weaken enforcement of the law, by removing an independent review board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, from its role reviewing claims of violations. The office—which historically was independent but is now led by a Trump official after Mr. Trump fired its leader, starting a bitter court fight—will review accusations and send findings to the White House, which is unlikely to take action against its own backers.

The Hatch Act was an attempt to end the last vestiges of the “spoils system” in which federal jobs were given as rewards for political loyalty. It underscored the idea that government employees serve the people of the United States, not a single political leader.

This does not fit with Donald Trump’s view of the presidency as a mere springboard to kingship.

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