Ethics

The White House last year apparently approached another Senate candidate, Andrew Romanoff of Colorado, with the possibility of a job offer in the Administration.   Romanoff, like Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, did not pursue the discussions and decided to proceed with his bid for the seat held by another Democrat, Senator Michael Bennet.

Once again the story is that the job offers were ?conditioned? upon a candidate dropping out of the Senate race.  As I have pointed out in the Sestak matter, this ?condition? is already imposed by the Hatch Act on full time Executive Branch employees.  A person who accepts such an Administration job cannot run for office in a partisan election, whether the White House wants him to or not.  The White House can offer a part time advisory board position instead, in which case the Hatch Act provisions might not apply and the person could also run for office, but such an advisory board position is hardly an inducement to give up a decent chance of becoming a Senator.

The jobs apparently discussed with Romanoff were political appointments in foreign policy, foreign aid and trade.  All of these presumably were full time jobs.  Apparently no actual offer was made.

The strategy is clear.  White House political advisors see two qualified Democrats going at each other in a Senate primary, one an incumbent and the other not.  The second candidate is approached about the possibility of a job in the Administration.  If a full time Administration job is accepted the candidate who accepts it will have to drop out of the race because of the Hatch Act.  The White House will get what is wants by operation of law. 

I don?t like this, and voters in the effected states certainly shouldn?t like it.  Once a candidate has declared an intention to run for federal office, the White House should back off and let the voters decide.  Then the White House can give the loser a job if it is warranted.  There are plenty of other people to fill Administration posts in the meantime.

Not liking it and saying it is illegal are two different things.  Once again, for reasons already mentioned I don?t see illegality unless of course someone lies about it.  If Congress wants to make this practice illegal, perhaps Congress should enact a law saying that no person who has filed papers to run in a federal election may be contacted by anyone in the Executive Branch about possible employment until the election is over. 

I would support such a law.   I doubt Congress would support it because most Members of Congress intend to run for reelection and such a law would put half of these Members out of a chance for an Adminiistration job.  As for the other half of the Members, such a law would deny them at least one pretext for investigating the first half of the Members and the White House at the same time.

Still, to be on the safe side, the Office of Presidential Personnel should hang a sign on the door:  Members of Congress and candidates for Congress need not apply.