Congressman Dan Goldman Offers Kellyanne Conway Amendment to Make Hatch Act Violations a Felony

Amendment Would Make Knowing Violation of Hatch Act Punishable by Up to Two Years of Prison Time

Washington, DC – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today offered the Kellyanne Conway Amendment to make willful violation of the Hatch Act a felony punishable by up to a two-year prison sentence. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in some forms of political activity, including partisan political campaigning. Right now, Hatch Act violations are prohibited but are not a crime. This Amendment would change that and make Hatch Act violations a felony.
 
“Today, we are marking up HR 140, a Republican bill that purports to stop the federal government from censoring protected speech under the First Amendment, despite the fact that such conduct is of course already prohibited by law. Worse yet, this is a solution in search of a problem, as my Republican colleagues have identified no evidence to support their conspiracy theory that protected speech was censored by the government,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “So instead of chasing ghosts, I am offering the Kellyanne Conway Amendment to address a truly serious issue: that the Trump administration wantonly and repeatedly violated the Hatch Act prohibition against using the official power of the government for partisan political purposes. This Amendment would make willful violations of the Hatch Act a felony offense and ensure serial offenders like Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway are faced with potential jail time as a deterrent.”
The Kellyanne Conway Amendment was offered today during a Committee on Oversight and Accountability markup of two Republican bills that purport to stop the federal government from censoring protected speech under the First Amendment.
 
The Republican bill, H.R. 140, is rooted in the far-right conspiracy theories that drove the Republicans’ February 8, 2023, hearing, “Protecting. Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story.”
 
The bill is modeled after the Hatch Act and would prohibit federal employees from taking any action in their official capacities that advocates for a third party, like a social media platform, to “censor any speech.”  
 
H.R. 140 is a solution in search of a problem, as Republicans on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability have provided no evidence in any way, shape, or form, that any protected speech was prohibited by the government.  
 
In fact, H.R. 140 would in effect bar federal employees from alerting social media platforms to nefarious foreign influence strategies, inviting autocratic regimes and actors to increase their attacks on American democracy.
 
Congressman Goldman is instead offering the Kellyanne Conway Amendment to H.R. 140 to change the bill from a pointless conspiracy theory exercise into one that addresses a serious issue: that the Trump administration proved the Hatch Act to be toothless against those intent on violating it.
 
A report from the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent agency tasked with enforcing the law, in 2021 found that 13 Trump administration officials had violated the Hatch Act.
 
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in particular was found to have violated the act so often during her government employment that the agency recommended in 2019 that she be fired from federal service for being a “repeat offender.”
 
The Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) oversees Hatch Act violations and 5 U.S. Code § 7326 states the penalties for violations of the Hatch Act:

• disciplinary action consisting of removal, reduction in grade, debarment from Federal employment for a period not to exceed 5 years, suspension, or reprimand;  
• an assessment of a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000; or  
• any combination of the penalties described in paragraph (1) or (2).

The Kellyanne Conway Amendment would add the following penalty: “if the violation is committed knowingly, shall be imprisoned not more than 2 years or fined under title 18, or both.”

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