Opinion ID: 211931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Viability of the Rebuttable Presumption Analysis

Text: 44 McEntee argues that the application of a rebuttable presumption of nonpartisanship is no longer a viable construct because: (1) the definition of partisan political office excludes elections designated as nonpartisan under state or local law; and (2) the policy statement of § 7321 protects the right of federal employees to participate in such elections. McEntee's interpretation of the statute is without merit. 45 McEntee asserts that elections designated as nonpartisan under state or local law cannot meet the statutory requirements to be considered a partisan political office. To reach this conclusion, McEntee reads the language of § 7322(2) as requiring that a candidate be elected or nominated to represent a major political party. Under this theory, because elections designated as nonpartisan do not provide a mechanism for parties to choose or identify their representative candidates, participation in such elections cannot constitute running for a partisan political office. 46 We reject McEntee's reading of § 7322(2) on the ground that it is contrary to the plain meaning of the statutory language. Statutory interpretation begins with the language of the statute, the plain meaning of which we derive from its text and its structure. Norfolk Dredging Co., Inc. v. United States, 375 F.3d 1106, 1110 (Fed.Cir.2004). Here, McEntee presumes that the term nominated or elected modifies the phrase as representing a party thereby creating a requirement that the candidates represent a party by nomination or election. A careful reading of the statute, however, reveals that the phrase as representing a party actually modifies the term nominated or elected and the entire clause any candidate is nominated or elected as representing a party identifies the office sought. Accordingly, the definition of a partisan political office expressly encompasses offices for which candidates are either nominated as representing a party or elected as representing a party. 47 While the term nominated ... as representing a party suggests a formal party endorsement or selection process, the term elected as representing a party is broader and imposes no such implication. In order to give meaning to all the words of the statute, as we must, we do not read the term elected as representing a party to require formal endorsement or selection by a major political party. TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31, 122 S.Ct. 441, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001) (stating that cardinal principles of statutory construction require that statutes be construed so that no clause, sentence or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant (quoting Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001))); United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538-39, 75 S.Ct. 513, 99 L.Ed. 615 (1955) (It is our duty to give effect if possible, to every clause and word of a statute. (internal cites omitted)); Shoshone Indian Tribe of the Wind River Reservation v. United States, 364 F.3d 1339, 1349 (Fed.Cir.2004) (Accepted rules of statutory construction suggest that we should attribute meaning to all of the words in the Act if possible.); James v. Santella, 328 F.3d 1374, 1381 (Fed.Cir.2003) (stating that as a general rule a statute should not be construed in such a way that renders one of its parts inoperative). Thus, the terms of § 7322(2) do not preclude an election designated as nonpartisan under state law from constituting an election for a partisan political office. 48 McEntee also asserts that the demise of the rebuttability of the presumption of nonpartisanship is mandated by § 7321. He reads the policy statement articulated in that section to prevent OSC from challenging the participation of federal employees in elections designated as nonpartisan under state or local law. He also contends that the section requires that all activities encompassed by the prohibitions of the Hatch Act be directly addressed in the statute thereby disallowing the application of the judicially-constructed rebuttable presumption analysis. 49 McEntee's interpretation of § 7321 does not accurately reflect the changes in the statutory scheme effected by the 1993 Amendments. Section 7321 states that employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of the Nation. 5 U.S.C. § 7321 (2000). The 1993 addition of § 7321 simply raised what had previously been the articulated policy of the Office of Personnel Management to the level of statute. 50 Prior to the 1993 Amendments, the regulations implementing the Hatch Act included the statement that [a]ll employees are free to engage in political activity to the widest extent consistent with the restrictions imposed by law and this subpart. 5 C.F.R. § 733.111(a) (1992). The regulations went on to identify the activities expressly permitted by the Act to include taking an active part, as a candidate or in support of a candidate, in a nonpartisan election. Id. § 733.111(a)(10). According to the preamendment statutory definition of nonpartisan political activity, employees were not prohibited from engaging in political activity in connection with ... an election and the preceding campaign if none of the candidates is to be nominated or elected at that election as representing a party any of whose candidates for presidential elector received votes in the last preceding election at which presidential electors were selected. 5 U.S.C. § 7326(1) (1988). It is worth noting that the earlier definition of nonpartisan political activity, where no candidate could be nominated or elected as representing a major political party, is simply the converse of the definition in the current statute for partisan political office, which includes elections where any candidate is nominated or elected as representing a major political party. Furthermore, the current regulations continue to define nonpartisan election in the exact terms used in the pre-1993 statute. See 5 C.F.R. § 734.101 (2004). 51 Placing the 1993 Amendments in their full legislative context, it is clear that, contrary to McEntee's assertion, the incorporation of § 7321 did not enhance the protection afforded an employee's right to participate in a presumptively nonpartisan election. Such rights were expressly protected under the pre-1993 regulatory scheme and the policy language of § 7321 simply reinforces that employees retain all political rights not expressly prohibited. 52 McEntee also argues that the phrase not expressly prohibited by law found in § 7321 requires that all limitations imposed on employees' political rights be promulgated in the statute. In support of this theory, McEntee attempts to rely on the legislative history of the amended statute and the regulations implementing it. 53 The Senate Report issued in conjunction with the reporting of Senate Bill 185 included additional views from four senators opposing the bill as written. As cited by McEntee, those senators stated that they read the language of what is now § 7321 to state clearly and unequivocally that without an express prohibition stated in statute, the President or agency will lack the necessary authority to provide for additional prohibitions beyond S. 185. S.Rep. No. 103-57 at 41, reprinted in 1993 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 1842. This statement was specifically made not out of concern over the scope of the activities prohibited, but in an effort to exempt certain sensitive employees, such as career senior executive service employees, federal supervisors and managers, and employees of comparable rank and status, from coverage under the bill. Id. The amendment that was proposed to address the concerns expressed in the additional views was disapproved by voice vote. S.Rep. No. 103-57 at 9, reprinted in 1993 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 1810. McEntee provides no rationale as to why we should give weight to an interpretation of the statute offered by senators opposing the bill adopted. As the Supreme Court has stated, the fears and doubts of the opposition are no authoritative guide to the construction of legislation, Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 394, 71 S.Ct. 745, 95 L.Ed. 1035 (1951), because often [i]n their zeal to defeat a bill, they understandably tend to overstate its reach. NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U.S. 58, 66, 84 S.Ct. 1063, 12 L.Ed.2d 129 (1964); see also Bryan v. United States, 524 U.S. 184, 196, 118 S.Ct. 1939, 141 L.Ed.2d 197 (1998). The relevance of the interpretation cited here is further diminished by the recognition that it was offered in response to concerns other than those identified by McEntee and the amendment proposed to address those concerns was rejected. We do not find the cited legislative history persuasive authority for interpreting § 7321 to prohibit application of the rebuttable presumption analysis. 54 McEntee's reliance on 5 C.F.R. § 734.104 is equally unavailing. The cited regulation provides that [n]o further proscriptions or restrictions may be imposed upon employees covered under this regulation with certain exceptions not relevant here. 5 C.F.R. § 734.104. The rebuttable presumption analysis, however, does not impose an additional proscription or restriction on federal employees. To the contrary, it simply permits enforcing officials to consider the actual conduct of a presumptively nonpartisan election in determining whether any federal employee candidate stood for election in that race as representing a party. 4 Such an inquiry does not conflict with the provisions of 5 C.F.R. § 734.104, which restricts the government's ability to make illegal activities deemed lawful under the statute and regulations, but does not limit the government's inquiry into determining what constitutes an unlawful activity. 55 McEntee correctly asserts that the 1993 Amendments relaxed the scope of certain Hatch Act prohibitions and that the current implementing regulations expressly permit an employee to [r]un as a candidate in a nonpartisan election. Id. § 734.207(b). McEntee's argument founders, however, when he attempts to rely on these precepts to insulate from scrutiny his conduct as a candidate for public office. Reduced to its base, McEntee's challenge to the post-1993 vitality of the rebuttable presumption analysis is nothing more than an attempt to limit the definition of nonpartisan election to the standards provided by state and local election law. We have previously rejected such invitations to define federal statutory and regulatory terms solely by reference to state law. Campbell v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 27 F.3d 1560 (Fed.Cir.1994). 56 In Campbell, a case decided under the pre-1993 Hatch Act, we interpreted the regulations that permit certain employees to participate in partisan elections as independent candidates, provided that they reside in municipalities with a majority of the voters employed by the federal government. Id. at 1568. In that case, we wisely refused to limit the definition of an independent candidate to the strictures of state law, primarily out of concern that reducing the factual inquiry into `independence' to an examination of a person's registration card and ballot billing would exalt form over substance and permit circumvention of the substantive congressional policy of keeping partisan politics out of the routine administration of the laws and the running of the bureaucracy. Id. Accordingly, we resolved Campbell by considering the facts presented to determine whether the employee's conduct in associating himself with the Democratic Party comported with the common meaning of the word independent. Id. at 1568-69. 57 McEntee's invitation to define the regulatory term nonpartisan election by reference solely to local election laws presents the identical risk of exalting form over substance that we identified and avoided in Campbell. We follow Campbell 's well-reasoned approach in rejecting that invitation in favor of a consideration of all the relevant facts at hand. 5 The First Circuit reached the same conclusion when presented with a similar invitation to define the limits of the Hatch Act. Magill v. Lynch, 560 F.2d 22, 29 (1st. Cir.1977) (holding that the government may constitutionally restrict its employees' participation in nominally nonpartisan elections if political parties play a large role in the campaigns). Accordingly, we affirm the Board's application of the rebuttable presumption analysis to determine whether McEntee's participation in a presumptively nonpartisan election constituted a violation of the Hatch Act. 58