The One-Party State

By Scott Horton

The Washington Post reports again on the sweeping incorporation of the agencies of the federal government in partisan political projects, and the epicenter of the project is . . . Karl Rove.

White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.

. . .

In the GSA briefing—conducted like all the others by a deputy to chief White House political adviser Karl Rove—two slides were presented showing 20 House Democrats targeted for defeat and several dozen vulnerable Republicans.

The Hatch Act is the most important of several federal statutes which create a legal bulwark against the politicization of agencies of the federal government. However, the Department of Justice, instead of enforcing the Hatch Act, is actually leading the charge to subvert it.

As Paul Kiel comments:

The entire scheme has been laid out before us. The question now is whether Karl Rove will get away with it. Here's the scheme, as revealed over the past month: Rove and his deputies traveled to various agencies throughout the government, lecturing management there about Republicans' political prospects. Which House and Senate members were in trouble? Which Democratic seats were vulnerable? What were the major issues in the election?

But there was a line to be drawn: no commands were to be given -- because such a directive would be a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, which forbids the use of government resources for political ends.

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