Posted on 05/06/2009 4:41:21 AM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast
SHAMOKIN — A longtime Shamokin police officer has come under fire because his candidacy for re-election to the Shamokin Area School Board may be in violation of a federal law.
The Hatch Act is a federal statute that prohibits federal employees and some state and local government employees whose work involves federal funding from running for partisan elective office. ... The Hatch Act of 1939 applies to executive branch state and local employees who are principally employed in connection with programs financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the U.S. or a federal agency. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsitem.com ...
From the article: "At issue is whether or not Griffiths is in violation of the act because the police department, like many local departments, receives federal grant money."
There are, I believe, about a dozen cops on that force. Shamokin is in the anthracite region, struggling economically, but if there's a list of the best little towns in America, it would have to rank near the top. Hardly any crime or taxes to speak of, compared to elsewhere; salt-of-the-earth folks, though many don't seem to realize how special their town is. Men like Griffiths are already serving the public in one field, yet they are moved to serve more in another, and a "gray area" law (ie, a flawed law) obstructs the good they would do. Meanwhile rascals can serve in the legislature unobstructed by term limits, inconvenient laws, or simple decency, and feast at the trough for decades.
Is he a Democrat? If so, no worries, no one will prosecute.
If he’s guilty AND he wins, he’s eligible for an honorary degree!
What about county sherrifs? Almost all have to run for office, and almost all sherrif’s departments receive federal funds, some quite a lot.
Geeeeee, in that case, all these teachers who teach in one district and get elected to the lcoal school board in the different district they live in could be violating the law. If it applied to former teachers who rely on pension money, and relatives of school teachers, half od the school boards in my area would lose 50% or more of the people who currently sign lucrative contracts with school teacher unions.
Apparently these things are decided on a case-by-case basis, which again points to the general crappiness of the law. You would think they wrote the Hatch Act to benefit grifters, since it affords such opportunities for influence peddling and bribery. “Well now Bubba, we’re gonna have to take a real hard look at whether or not this law applies to you...” That sounds to me like the squeak of a palm crying out loud for grease.
When you think about all the new incursions of federal money (and influence) into places no one ever dreamed of sticking it, until 0bama came along...who is safe anymore from charges of corruption? (Possible answers: John Murtha and Arlen Specter.)
This law was bad enough, in its ambiguity, before 0bama started eroding the boundaries with the acid of federal funds. Here’s just one example, this good guy trying to serve his community, of how things are going to start coming apart as the fed gov saturates the native soil with their ill-gotten gains.
Call me cynical but I think teachers are a protected class. Some of those animals more equal than the others in the barnyard. Union membership will do that sometimes.
It may be a gray area as to whether Griffiths is covered under the Hatch Act due to the source of his income. What is not a gray area, though, is whether he can run for a non-partisan office. The Hatch Act clearly states that Federal employees may be candidates for public office in non-partisan elections. If Griffiths is not required to identify his political affiliation, as is the case for most school board elections, it is permissible for him to run for that office.
Would a violation of the Hatch act include Senators running for President??? Just hoping....
If only it were!! :D
I had the same question.
My question exactly. I was a city council person (and worked/ still work in law enforcement for an agency other than the city) and since it was not “partisan” did not violate the Hatch Act, perhaps school politics are partisan in PA?
I find it interesting that the police officer first checked with the city attorneys to ascertain if he could legally run for election to the education board and apparently was told that he could do so. Either they gave him terribly bad advice or this is a politically motivated effort to remove him.
I lived in Shamokin for a few months in 1974. Back then, there was a grisly triple murder in the town. I don’t know if it was ever solved. Shamokin city is currently in heavy debt and is expecting a negative cash flow. I supsect they are like a number of smaller towns in America.
Thanks for posting this. I would never have seen this had you not done so.
The hatch act only applies to partisan politics.
For instance I worked for the county and was elected as a City council person. Before I was seated the City attorney had to investigate whether I could legally serve.
As long as you are running for a non partisan office you can serve.
Until you get to county level politics most elected offices are non partisan.
When voting on issues that would directly affect my position or in which I would personally benefit I had to declare conflict of interest. However in the 6 years I served I voted on many issues that could have negatively affected my position in the county because the vote was contrary to the county commissioners position but never came across an issue in which I would have benefited.
I’ve lived in the coal region for many years, but was brought up in more urban environments. It still amazes me that people in the coal region have so little appreciation for their small towns, so little sense of how different from the cities. Especially here in rural PA, where they complain about property taxes that are less than one-tenth what they’d be elsewhere, and crime even less than a tenth of what the typical urban area is suffering. They are outraged when a 3 bedroom house rents as high as $300 plus utilities, and my first studio apartment in the city was a thousand dollars more, a decade ago.
And yes, now and then someone shoots someone, but unlike say Philadelphia, it doesn’t happen every other day and when it does happen they don’t try to ban guns. (The coal region is, IMO, one of the most gun-friendly places on the planet.)
We currently live in a town not far from there, bigger and not so friendly, not so safe, not so easy on the living expenses, but still far better than the big city, and we thank the Lord every night for lighting our path here.
>>Is he a Democrat? If so, no worries, no one will prosecute.<<
In Delaware, Representative Pete Schwarzkopf (no relation to the general) is a state legislator, a state trooper, and until recently, head of security at Harrington Raceway. Three jobs, three taxpayer-paid pensions.
Conflict of Interest, nah! He’s a RAT. DSSR - home of Biden and lots of other crooks.
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