HATCH ACT OVERVIEW
The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. The law’s purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.
RESOURCES
The following information is useful for agency leaders and employees on what activities are authorized as a federal employee.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA)
The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) has released its newest Information Interchange Bulletin: Freedom of Information Act Basics.
The Bulletin provides a high-level overview of FOIA’s basic structure. It explains FOIA’s proactive disclosure requirements, the process by which members of the public can request access to agency records, and categories of information that are exempted from FOIA disclosure.
For more detailed information about FOIA, check out the Federal Administrative Procedure Sourcebook—a continuously updated online compilation of the key legal sources governing nearly every aspect of administrative procedure. The Sourcebook is a joint publication of ACUS and the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Process.
ACUS’s Office of the Chairman releases new Information Interchange Bulletins on an ongoing basis. Recent Bulletins have covered agency appellate systems, recordkeeping in informal rulemaking, incorporation by reference, and agency bid protests.