Source: https://openjurist.org/413/us/548
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:24:29+00:00

Document:
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS AFL-CIO, et al.
1. The holding of Mitchell, supra, that federal employees can be prevented from holding a party office, working at the polls, and acting as party paymaster for other party workers is reaffirmed. Congress can also constitutionally forbid federal employees from engaging in plainly identifiable acts of political management and political campaigning, such as organizing a political party or club; actively participating in fund-raising activities for a partisan candidate or political party; becoming a partisan candidate for, or campaigning for, an elective public office; actively managing the campaign of a partisan candidate for public office; initiating or circulating a partisan nominating petition or soliciting votes for a partisan candidate for public office; or serving as a delegate, alternate, or proxy to a political party convention. Pp. 554—567.
2. It is the Civil Service Commission's regulations regarding political activity, the legitimate descendants of the 1940 restatement adopted by the Congress, and, in most respects the reflection of longstanding interpretations of the statute by the agency charged with its interpretation and enforcement, and the statute itself, that are the bases for rejecting the claim that the Act is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Pp. 568—581.
(a) The regulations specifying the various activities deemed prohibited by § 7324(a)(2) are set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and observe, without sacrifice to the public interest, and are not impermissibly vague. Pp. 575—580.
(c) Even if the provisions forbidding partisan campaign endorsements and speechmaking were to be considered in some respects constitutionally overbroad, they would not invalidate the entire statute. Pp. 580—581.
Each of the plaintiffs alleged that the Civil Service Commission was enforcing, or threatening to enforce, the Hatch Act's prohibition against active participation in political management or political campaigns with respect to certain defined activity in which that plaintiff desired to engage.3 The Union, for example, stated among other things that its members desired to campaign for candidates for public office. The Democratic and Republican Committees complained of not being able to get federal employees to run for state and local offices. Plaintiff Hummel stated that he was aware of the provision of the Hatch Act and that the activities he desired to engage in would violate that Act as, for example, his participating as a delegate in a party convention or holding office in a political club.
As the District Court recognized, the constitutionality of the Hatch Act's ban on taking an active part in political management or political campaigns has been here before. This very prohibition was attacked in the Mitchell case by a labor union and various federal employees as being violative of the First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments and as contrary to the Fifth Amendment by being vague and indefinite, arbitrarily discriminatory, and a deprivation of liberty. The Court there first determined that with respect to all but one of the plaintiffs there was no case or controversy present within the meaning of Art. III because the Court could only speculate as to the type of political activity the appellants there desired to engage in or as to the contents of their proposed public statements or the circumstances of their publication. As to the plaintiff Poole, however, the Court noted that '(h)e was a ward executive committeeman of a political party and was politically active on election day as a worker at the polls and a paymaster for the services of other party workers.' 330 U.S., at 94, 67 S.Ct., at 566. Plainly, the Court thought, these activities fell within the prohibition of § 9(a) of the Hatch Act against taking an active part in political management or political campaigning; and '(t)hey (were) also covered by the prior determinations of the (Civil Service) Commission,' id., at 103, 67 S.Ct., at 571 (footnote omitted), as incorporated by § 15 of the Hatch Act,4 the Court relying on a Civil Service Commission publication, Political Activity and Political Assessments, Form 1236, Sept. 1939, for the latter conclusion. Id., at 103, n. 38, 67 S.Ct., at 571. Poole's complaint thus presented a case or controversy for decision, the question being solely whether the Hatch Act 'without violating the Constitution, (could make this conduct) the basis for disciplinary action.' Id., at 94, 67 S.Ct., at 567. The Court held that it could. '(T)he practice of excluding classified employees from party offices and personal political activity at the polls ha(d) been in effect for several decades,' id., at 96, 67 S.Ct., at 568, and the Court, over a single dissent, in Ex parte Curtis, 106 U.S. 371, 1 S.Ct. 381, 27 L.Ed. 232 (1882), had previously upheld the longstanding prohibition forbidding federal employees 'from giving or receiving money for political purposes from or to other employees of the government,' 330 U.S., at 967, 67 S.Ct., at 568. 'The conviction that an actively partisan governmental personnel threatens good administration has deepened since . . . Curtis,' id., at 97—98, 67 S.Ct., at 568—569, Congress having recognized the 'danger to the service in that political rather than official effort may earn advancement and to the public in that governmental favor may be channeled through political connections.' Id., at 98, 67 S.Ct., at 569 (footnote omitted).
There were other voices raised in the 19th century against the mixing of partisan politics and routine federal service. But until after the Civil War, the spoils system under which federal employees came and went, depending upon party service and changing administrations, rather than meritorious performance, was much the vogue and the prevalent basis for governmental employment and advancement. 1 Report of Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel, Findings and Recommendations 7—8 (1968). That system did not survive. Congress authorized the President to prescribe regulations for the creation of a civil service of federal employees in 1871, 16 Stat. 514; but it was the Civil Service Act of 1883, c. 27, 22 Stat. 403, known as the Pendleton Act, H. Kaplan, The Law of Civil Service 9—10 (1958), that declared that 'no person in the public service is for that reason under any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service' and that 'no person in said service has any right to use his official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body.' 22 Stat. 404. That Act authorized the President to promulgate rules to carry the Act into effect and created the Civil Service Commission as the agency or administrator of the Act under the rules of the President.
It was under this rule that the Commission thereafter exercised the authority it had to investigate, adjudicate, and recommend sanctions for federal employees thought to have violated the rule. See Howard, Federal Restrictions on the Political Activity of Government Employees, 35 Am.Pol.Sci.Rev. 470, 475 (1941). In the course of these adjudications, the Commission identified and developed a body of law with respect to the conduct of federal employees that was forbidden by the prohibition against taking an active part in political management or political campaigning. Adjudications under Civil Service Rule I spelled out the scope and meaning of the rule in the mode of the common law, 86 Cong.Rec. 2341—2342; and the rules fashioned in this manner were from time to time stated and restated by the Commission for the guidance of the federal establishment. Civil Service Form 1236 of September 1939, for example, purported to publish and restate the law of 'Political Activity and Political Assessments' for federal officeholders and employees.
Civil Service Rule I covered only the classified service. The experience of the intervening years, particularly that of the 1936 and 1938 political campaigns, convinced a majority in Congress that the prohibition against taking an active part in political management and political campaigns should be extended to the entire federal service. 84 Cong.Rec. 4303, 9595, 9604, and 9610. A bill introduced for this purpose, S.1871, 'to prevent pernicious political activities,' easily passed the Senate, 84 Cong.Rec. 4191—4192; but both the constitutionality and the advisability of purporting to restrict the political activities of employees were heatedly debated in the House. Id., at 9594—9639. The bill was enacted, however. 53 Stat. 1147. This was the so-called Hatch Act, named after the Senator who was its chief proponent. In its initial provisions, §§ 1 and 2, it forbade anyone from coercing or interfering with the vote of another person and prohibited federal employees from using their official positions to influence or interfere with or affect the election or nomination of certain federal officials. Sections 3 and 4 of the Act prohibited the promise of, or threat of termination of, employment or compensation for the purpose of influencing or securing political activity, or support or opposition for any candidate.
It seems fundamental in the first place that employees in the Executive Branch of the Government, or those working for any of its agencies, should administer the law in accordance with the will of Congress, rather than in accordance with their own or the will of a political party. They are expected to enforce the law and execute the programs of the Government without bias or favoritism for or against any political party or group or the members thereof. A major thesis of the Hatch Act is that to serve this great end of Government—the impartial execution of the laws—it is essential that federal employees, for example, not take formal positions in political parties, not undertake to play substantial roles in partisan political campaigns, and not run for office on partisan political tickets. Forbidding activities like these will reduce the hazards to fair and effective government. See 84 Cong.Rec. 9598; 86 Cong.Rec. 2433 2434, 2864; Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417 before the Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 171.
A related concern, and this remains as important as any other, was to further serve the goal that employment and advancement in the Government service not depend on political performance, and at the same time to make sure that Government employees would be free from pressure and from express or tacit invitation to vote in a certain way or perform political chores in order to curry favor with their superiors rather than to act out their own beliefs. See, e.g., id., at 9598, 9603; 86 Cong.Rec. 2433—2434; Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417, supra, at 171. It may be urged that prohibitions against coercion are sufficient protection; but for many years the joint judgment of the Executive and Congress has been that to protect the rights of federal employees with respect to their jobs and their political acts and beliefs it is not enough merely to forbid one employee to attempt to influence or coerce another.12 For example, at the hearings in 1972 on proposed legislation for liberalizing the prohibition against political activity, the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission stated that 'the prohibitions against active participation in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns constitute the most significant safeguards against coercion . . ..' Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417, supra, at 52. Perhaps Congress at some time will come to a different view of the realities of political life and Government service; but that is its current view of the matter, and we are not now in any position to dispute it. Nor, in our view, does the Constitution forbid it.
Neither the right to associate nor the right to participate in political activities is absolute in any event. See, e.g., Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 93 S.Ct. 1245, 36 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336, 92 S.Ct. 995, 999, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 140—141, 92 S.Ct. 849, 854—855, 31 L.Ed.2d 92 (1972); Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30—31, 89 S.Ct. 5, 10—11, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968). Nor are the management, financing, and conduct of political campaigns wholly free from governmental regulation.13 We agree with the basic holding of Mitchell that plainly identifiable acts of political management and political campaigning on the part of federal employees may constitutionally be prohibited. Until now this has been the judgment of the lower federal courts,14 and we do not understand the District Court in this case to have questioned the constitutionality of a law that was specifically limited to prohibiting the conduct in which Mr. Poole in the Mitchell case admittedly engaged.
Section 7324(a)(2) provides that an employee in an executive agency must not take 'an active part in political management or in political campaigns' and goes on to say that this prohibition refers to 'those acts of political management or political campaigning which were prohibited on the part of employees in the competitive service before July 19, 1940, by determinations of the Civil Service Commission under the rules prescribed by the President.' Section 7324(b) privileges an employee to vote as he chooses and to express his opinion on political subjects and candidates, and §§ 7324(c) and (d), as well as § 7326, also limit the applicability of § 7324(a)(2).15 The principal issue with respect to this statutory scheme is what Congress intended when it purported to define 'an active part in political management or in political campaigns,' as meaning the prior interpretations by the Civil Service Commission under Civil Service Rule I which contained the identical prohibition.
Earlier in this opinion it was noted that this definition was contained in § 15 of the 1940 Act. As recommended by the Senate Committee, S.Rep.No.1236, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 2, 4, § 15 conferred broad rulemaking authority on the Civil Service Commission to spell out the meaning of 'an active part in political management or in political campaigns.'16 There were, in any event, strong objections to extending the Hatch Act to those state employees working in federally financed programs, see, e.g., 86 Cong.Rec. 2486, 2793—2794, 2801—2802, and to § 15, in particular, as being an unwise and invalid delegation of legislative power to the Commission. See, e.g., id., at 2352, 2426 2427, 2579, 2794, 2875. The matter was vigorously debated; and ultimately Senator Hatch, the principal proponent and manager of the bill, offered a substitute for § 15, id., at 2928 and 2937, limiting the reach of the prohibition to those same activities that the Commission 'has heretofore determined are at the time of the passage of this act prohibited on the part of employees' in the classified service by the similar provision in Civil Service Rule I.17 The matter was further debated, and the amendment carried. Id., at 2958—2959.
The District Court and appellees construe § 15, now part of § 7324(a)(2), as incorporating each of the several thousand adjudications of the Civil Service Commission under Civil Service Rule I, many of which are said to be undiscoverable, inconsistent, or incapable of yielding any meaningful rules to govern present or future conduct. In any event, the District Court held the prohibition against taking an active part in political management and political campaigns to be itself an insufficient guide to employee behavior and thought the definitional addendum of § 15 only compounded the confusion by referring the concerned employees to an impenetrable jungle of Commission proceedings, orders, and rulings. 346 F.Supp., at 582—583, 585.
We take quite a different view of the statute. As we see it, our task is not to destroy the Act if we can, but to construe it, if consistent with the will of Congress, so as to comport with constitutional limitations. With this in mind and having examined with some care the proceedings surrounding the passage of the 1940 Act and adoption of the substitute for § 15, we think it appears plainly enough that Congress intended to deprive the Civil Service Commission of rulemaking power in the sense of exercising a subordinate legislative role in fashioning a more expansive definition of the kind of conduct that would violate the prohibition against taking an active part in political management or political campaigns. But it is equally plain, we think, that Congress accepted the fact that the Commission had been performing its investigative and adjudicative role under Civil Service Rule I since 1907 and that the Commission had, on a case-by-case basis, fleshed out the meaning of Rule I and so developed a body of law with respect to what partisan conduct by federal employees was forbidden by the rule. 86 Cong.Rec. 2342, 2353. It is also apparent, in our view, that the rules that had evolved over the years from repeated adjudications were subject to sufficiently clear and summary statement for the guidance of the classified service. Many times during the debate on the floor of the Senate, Senator Hatch and others referred to a summary list of such prohibitions, see, e.g., id., at 2929, 2937 2938, 2942—2943, 2949, 2952—2953, the Senator's ultimate reference being to Civil Service Form No. 1236 of September 1939, the pertinent portion of which he placed in the Record, id., at 2938 2940,18 and which was the Commission's then-current effort to restate the prevailing prohibitions of Civil Service Rule I, as spelled out in its adjudications to that date. It was this administrative restatement of Civil Service Rule I law, modified to the extent necessary to reflect the provisions of the 1939 and 1940 Acts themselves, that, in our view, Congress intended to serve as its definition of the general proscription against partisan activities.19 It was within the limits of these rules that the Civil Service Commission was to proceed to perform its role under the statute.
It is thus not surprising that there were later editions of Form 1236,20 or that in 1970 the Commission again purported to restate the law of forbidden political activity and, informed by years of intervening adjudications, again sought to define those acts which are forbidden and those which are permitted by the Hatch Act. These regulations, 5 CFR pt. 733, are wholly legitimate descendants of the 1940 restatement adopted by Congress and were arrived at by a process that Congress necessarily anticipated would occur down through the years. We accept them as the current and, in most respects, the longstanding interpretations of the statute by the agency charged with its interpretation and enforcement. It is to these regulations purporting to construe § 7324 as actually applied in practice, as well as to the statute itself, with its various exclusions, that we address ourselves in rejecting the claim that the Act is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Law Students Civil Rights Research Council v. Wadmond, 401 U.S. 154, 162—163, 91 S.Ct. 720, 726—727, 27 L.Ed.2d 749 (1971); cf. Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 520—521, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 1105—1106, 31 L.Ed.2d 408 (1972).
Whatever might be the difficulty with a provision against taking 'active part in political management or in political campaigns,' the Act specifically provides that the employee retains the right to vote as he chooses and to express his opinion on political subjects and candidates. The Act exempts research and educational activities supported by the District of Columbia or by religious, philanthropic, or cultural organizations, 5 U.S.C. § 7324(c); and § 7326 exempts nonpartisan political activity: questions, that is, that are not identified with national or state political parties are not covered by the Act, including issues with respect to constitutional amendments, referendums, approval of municipal ordinances, and the like. Moreover, the plain import of the 1940 amendment to the Hatch Act is that the proscription against taking an active part in the proscribed activities is not open-ended but is limited to those rules and proscriptions that had been developed under Civil Service Rule I up to the date of the passage of the 1940 Act. Those rules, as refined by further adjudications within the outer limits of the 1940 rules, were restated by the Commission in 1970 in the form of regulations specifying the conduct that would be prohibited or permitted by § 7324 and its companion sections.
We have set out these regulations in the margin.21 We see nothing impermissibly vague in 5 CFR § 733.122, which specifies in separate paragraphs the various activities deemed to be prohibited by § 7324(a)(2). There might be quibbles about the meaning of taking an 'active part in managing' or about 'actively participating in . . . fund-raising' or about the meaning of becoming a 'partisan' candidate for office; but there are limitations in the English language with respect to being both specific and manageably brief, and it seems to us that although the prohibitions may not satisfy those intent on finding fault at any cost, they are set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and comply with, without sacrifice to the public interest. '(T)he general class of offenses to which . . . (the provisions are) directed is plainly within (their) terms, . . . (and they) will not be struck down as vague, even though marginal cases could be put where doubts might arise.' United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 618, 74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954). Surely, there seemed to be little question in the minds of the plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit as to the meaning of the law, or as to whether or not the conduct in which they desire to engage was or was not prohibited by the Act.
The Act permits the individual employee to 'express his opinion on political subjects and candidates,' 5 U.S.C. § 7324(b); and the corresponding regulation, 5 CFR § 733.111(a)(2), privileges the employee to '(e)xpress his opinion as an individual privately and publicly on political subjects and candidates.' The section of the regulations which purports to state the partisan acts that are proscribed, id., § 733.122, forbids in subparagraph (a)(10) the endorsement of 'a partisan candidate for public office or political party office in a political advertisement, a broadcast, campaign literature, or similar material,' and in subparagraph (a)(12), prohibits '(a)ddressing a convention, caucus, rally, or similar gathering of a political party in support of or in opposition to a partisan candidate for public office or political party office.' Arguably, there are problems in meshing § 733.111(a)(2) with §§ 733.122(a)(10) and (12), but we think the latter prohibitions sufficiently clearly carve out the prohibited political conduct from the expressive activity permitted by the prior section to survive any attack on the ground of vagueness or in the name of any of those policies that doctrine may be deemed to further.
14. Primaries—caucuses: An employee may attend a primary meeting, mass convention, beat convention, caucus, and the like, and may cast his vote on any question presented, but he may not pass this point in participating in its deliberations. He may not act as an officer of the meeting, convention, or caucus, may not address it, make motions, prepare or assist in preparing resolutions, assume to represent others, or take any prominent part therein.
28. Applying for Presidential positions not in the classified service:1 When a classified employee seeks promotion by appointment or transfer to a Presidential office not in the classified service there is no objection to his becoming a candidate for such an office, provided the consent of his department is obtained, and provided he does not violate section 1 of rule I, prohibiting the use of his official authority or influence in political matters, and provided further that he does not neglect his duty and avoids any action that would cause public scandal or semblance of coercion of his fellow employees or of those over whom he desires to be placed in the position he seeks.
'It has been asked whether the order prohibits Federal officers from holding positions on boards of education, school committees, public libraries, religious or eleemosynary institutions incorporated or established or sustained by State or municipal authority. Positions and service on such boards and committees, and professorships in colleges5 are not regarded as 'offices' within the contemplation of the Executive order, but as employments or service in which all good citizens may be engaged without incompatibility and in many cases without necessary interference with any position which they may hold under the Federal Government. Officers of the Federal Government may therefore engage in such service, provided the attention required by such employment does not interfere with the regular and efficient discharge of the duties of their office under the Federal Government. The head of the department under whom the Federal office is held will in all cases be the sole judge whether or not the employment does thus interfere.
The District Court felt that the prohibitions in the Act are 'worded in generalities that lack precision,' 346 F.Supp., 578, 582, with the result that it is hazardous for an employee 'if he ventures to speak on a political matter since he will not know when his words or acts relating to political subjects will offend.' Id., at 582—583.
The chilling effect of these vague and generalized prohibitions is so obvious as not to need elaboration. That effect would not be material to the issue of constitutionality if only the normal contours of the police power were involved. On the run of social and economic matters the 'rational basis' standard which United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754, applied would suffice.1 But what may have been unclear to some in Mitchell should be now be abundantly clear to all. We deal here with a First Amendment right to speak, to propose, to publish, to petition Government, to assemble. Time and place are obvious limitations. Thus no one could object if employees were barred from using office time to engage in outside activities whether political or otherwise. But it is of no concern of Government what an employee does in his spare time, whether religion, recreation, social work, or politics is his hobby—unless what he does impairs efficiency or other facets of the merits of his job. Some things, some activities do affect or may be thought to affect the employee's job performance. But his political creed, like his religion, is irrelevant. In the areas of speech, like religion, it is of no concern what the employee says in private to his wife or to the public in Constitution Hall. If Government employment were only a 'privilege,' then all sorts of conditions might be attached. But it is now settled that Government employment may not be denied or penalized 'on a basis that infringes (the employee's) constitutionally protected interests—especially, his interest in freedom of speech.' See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2697, 33 L.Ed.2d 570. If Government, as the majority stated in Mitchell, may not condition public employment on the basis that the employee will not 'take any active part in missionary work,' 330 U.S., at 100, 67 S.Ct., at 570, it is difficult to see why it may condition employment on the basis that the employee not take 'an active part . . . in political campaigns.' For speech, assembly, and petition are as deeply embedded in the First Amendment as proselytizing a religious cause.
Mitchell is of a different vintage from the present case. Since its date, a host of decisions have illustrated the need for narrowly drawn statutes that touch First Amendment rights. A teacher was held to be unconstitutionally discharged for sending a letter to a newspaper that criticized the school authorities. Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 573, 88 S.Ct., 1731, 1737, 20 L.Ed.2d 811. 'In these circumstances we conclude that the interest of the school administration in limiting teachers' opportunities to contribute to public debate is not significantly greater than its interest in limiting a similar contribution by any member of the general public.' We followed the same course in Wood v. Georgia, 370 U.S. 375, 82 S.Ct. 1364, 8 L.Ed.2d 569, when we relieved a sheriff from a contempt conviction for making a public statement in connection with a current political controversy. As in the present case, the shefiff spoke as a private citizen and what he said did not interfere with his duties as sheriff. Id., at 393—394, 82 S.Ct., at 1374—1375.
The complaint made the same allegations with respect to 5 U.S.C. § 1502(a) (3), the provision taken from § 12(a) of the Hatch Act, 54 Stat. 767, which imposes similar prohibitions on certain state employees working in programs that are federally financed. The District Court, however, while holding the class action was proper with respect to federal employees, held that none of the parties was properly representative of state employees covered by the Act. 346 F.Supp. 578, 579 n. 1. Hence only § 7324(a)(2) with respect to federal employees is before us in this case.
Plaintiff Hummel alleged that he desired to engage in a wide variety of political activities including '(1) participation as a delegate in conventions of a political party; (2) public endorsement of candidates of a political party for local, state and national office; (3) work at polling places on behalf of a political party during elections; (4) holding office in a political club. As a result of inquiries of the Civil Service Commission and his knowledge of the Hatch Act, Plaintiff Hummel is aware that such activities violate the Hatch Act.' Id., at 7—8.
Section 15 of the Hatch Act, now codified in 5 U.S.C. § 7324(a)(2), see n. 1, supra, defined the prohibition against taking 'an active part in political management or in political campaigns' as proscribing those activities that the Civil Service Commission had determined up to the time of the passage of the Hatch Act were prohibited for classified civil service employees. The role and scope of § 15 are discussed in the text, infra.
Senator Hatch quoted from this order in the debate on the 1940 amendments to the Hatch Act, 86 Cong.Rec. 2433—2434.
The 1940 amendments to the Hatch Act, 54 Stat. 767—772, also provided, inter alia, for a limitation on certain campaign contributions, § 13; for federal employees in municipalities in the vicinity of the District of Columbia, with the approval of the Commission, to engage in political activity, § 16; and for a limitation on receipts and expenditures of political committees, § 20.
H.R. 2372, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., S. 2032, 92d Cong., 1st Sess.; S. 3417, 92d Cong., 2d Sess.; S. 235, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. For the legislation recommended by the Commission on Political Activity, see 1 Report of Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel, Findings and Recommendations 44—60 (1968).
Hearings on S. 3374, and S. 3417 before the Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. Congress has extended the restrictions on political activity to persons not previously covered. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, § 603, 78 Stat. 530, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2943, extended the restrictions to certain employees of private corporations; the Postal Reorganization Act, 84 Stat. 719, 39 U.S.C. § 410, made the provisions applicable to the Postal Service; and the Emergency Employment Act of 1971, § 12(h), 85 Stat. 154, 42 U.S.C. § 4881(h) (1970 ed., Supp. I), extended the provisions to personnel employed in the administration of programs established under the Act.

References: § 7324
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 § 7326
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 § 7326
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 § 733
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 § 1502
 § 12
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 § 603
 § 2943
 § 410
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 § 4881