House Overrides Bush’s Veto of Hatch Act Bill
The House on Wednesday, by a vote of 327 to 93, overrode President Bush’s veto of legislation to give millions of government workers the right to play a more active role in politics.
The House vote, well over the necessary two-thirds majority, sets up a showdown today in the Senate, where a much closer outcome is expected.
The bill would remove many of the prohibitions in the 1939 Hatch Act, which now bars 3 million federal civil service and postal workers from actively participating in political parties or candidates’ campaigns.
More than half of the House’s 176 Republicans, including Minority Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois, bolted from the Administration to support the veto override.
The Senate approved the bill by a potentially veto-overriding 67-30 vote in May. The Administration’s task after the House vote, in order to sustain Bush’s winning record in veto showdowns, was to get two of the 13 Senate Republicans who supported changing the law to switch.
Bush vetoed the bill last Friday, saying it “would inevitably lead to re-politicizing the federal work force” and would “destroy its essential political neutrality.”
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