Bush Vetoes Liberalizing of Hatch Act : Law Would Destroy ‘Political Neutrality’ of U.S. Civil Service

President Bush today vetoed a bill to ease a ban against political activity by government workers, saying the measure would destroy the “essential political neutrality” of the federal work force.

Bush said the legislation to liberalize the 51-year-old Hatch Act would “inevitably lead to repoliticizing” the government bureaucracy.

It was the 12th veto of Bush’s presidency. Congress has yet to override one. Just this week, the Senate sustained Bush’s veto of an Amtrak authorization bill by a two-vote margin.

In vetoing the Hatch Act measure, Bush said that “after all the debate, no real need to repeal the existing Hatch Act has been demonstrated.”

For more than half a century, “the Hatch Act has successfully insulated the federal service from the undue political influence that would destroy its essential political neutrality,” Bush said.

The bill would substantially erase prohibitions that now restrict the nation’s 3 million federal civil service and postal employees to little more than voting.

It would allow them to hold office in a political party, to attend political conventions as a delegate and, in some cases, to solicit political contributions from co-workers--practices now prohibited.

Sponsors said the measure would extend the same fundamental freedoms now enjoyed by the rest of the population to federal and postal workers.

But, Bush argued, “We cannot afford, in the final decade of this century, to embark on a retreat into the very worst aspects of public administration from the last century.”

Bush said the restrictions did not go far enough.

His veto had been expected.

The House approved the measure 334 to 87 on Tuesday.

The Senate passed the same bill last month by a vote of 67 to 30. That’s enough for a veto override. But GOP Senate leaders have expressed confidence they can persuade one or two of their colleagues to change votes to sustain the veto.