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A pair of bills passed by Congress will finally allow D.C. to get out from under the federal Hatch Act, the law that prevents civil servants from engaging in partisan political activities.

According to a press release from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office, D.C. government workers will now be held to the standards of a local law, offering more clarity for local elected officials like ANC commissioners who in the past were told by the Office of the Special Counsel that they were not allowed to run for higher office while holding the positions:

First, under Norton’s D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act, erasing the pre-home-rule treatment of the city, D.C. government employees will no longer be treated as if they were federal employees under the Hatch Act. Instead, D.C. government employees will be treated the same as other local and state government employees under the Hatch Act. In addition, D.C. government employees, like other state and local employees, will be governed by a local Hatch Act, as required by Norton’s bill, which the city adopted in anticipation of passage of Norton’s bill. Norton got the D.C. Hatch Act Reform Act through the House in 1993, but it stalled in the Senate. She succeeded in getting it passed in the House last Congress as well, pointing to confused and inconsistent results when the Hatch Act provisions that applied to federal employees were applied to D.C. government employees, but it stalled in the Senate again.

Her other Hatch Act bill, the Hatch Act National Capital Region Parity Act, authorizes the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to permit federal employees who reside in the District to run as independent candidates in local partisan elections. Under the Hatch Act, federal employees generally may not be candidates in partisan elections. However, in the 1940s, Congress gave OPM the authority to exempt federal employees in towns in Maryland, Virginia, and the immediate vicinity of D.C. from the Hatch Act’s prohibition on federal employees running in partisan elections, so that towns with a high concentration of federal employees would not be deprived of having a significant percentage of their residents participate in local affairs. OPM did not have the authority to exempt federal employees living in D.C. because the city did not have local elections before the Home Rule Act of 1973. Norton will soon ask OPM to permit D.C.’s federal employees to run in partisan elections like the federal employees in 64 Maryland and Virginia towns are able to.

The bills now go to President Obama for his signature.