Last week, Republican Rodney Anderson’s campaign told voters a disturbing story about his opponent for House District 105.
“A Federal complaint has been filed against [Democrat Susan] Motley for violating Federal law,” a mailer warned in boldface type.
Anderson’s strategist mass-emailed voters that Motley, a lawyer at Disability Rights Texas, could be fired under the Hatch Act — a law that “prohibits employees of ... nonprofits funded by the federal government from engaging in partisan political activity.”
But this week, federal officials cast strong doubt on that story.
A spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which oversees the Hatch Act, contradicted the Anderson campaign’s arguments that the law bars Motley from campaigning for the House district covering most of Irving and part of Grand Prairie.
What’s more, the agency could find no record that a complaint had been filed against Motley before the mailers went out.
“This had nothing to do with any ethics violation,” said Motley’s campaign manager, Tom Schwarz. “It was about trying to get a mother of four fired from her job ... so they could set up a mailer and press release.”
The Anderson campaign said it re-sent a complaint against Motley to the Office of Special Counsel late Monday — several hours after agency officials said they never received the complaint promoted on Anderson’s campaign material last week.
“Never has anyone tried to do this and not actually filed a complaint,” Schwarz said. “It’s just beyond me.”
Anderson’s strategist, Corbin Casteel, insisted that the campaign first sent the complaint more than a week ago. “There could have been a clerical error on their end,” he said in an email. Now that the agency has the complaint, “a federal investigation is underway.”
The Office of Special Counsel has to investigate any allegation of Hatch Act violations. But a spokesman for the agency has raised doubt about the complaint’s merit.
In a statement, Nick Schwellenbach echoed Motley’s arguments — and those of several employment attorneys with no connection to the race — that she isn’t bound by the Hatch Act.
“A nonprofit employee is only subject to candidate restriction under the Hatch Act if their salary is fully funded by Head Start or Community Service Block Grants,” the spokesman said.
Motley’s employer, which advocates for disabled people’s rights, said it takes no such funds. And Anderson’s team has not argued otherwise — instead citing a court case that punished nonprofit employees under the Hatch Act in 1987. But the law has been watered down since then.
The Hatch Act was written 75 years ago, to keep powerful government bureaucrats from interfering in elections. But as time went on, it turned into a political cudgel often used to keep low-level officials from running. In one case, a police officer was barred from running for the school board because his partner, a dog, was federally funded.
Congress weakened the act in 2012, limiting it almost exclusively to certain federal government employees.
“Those who know me know I would not file a frivolous complaint,” Anderson said Monday as he campaigned outside Irving City Hall on the first day of early voting.
When told that the Office of Special Counsel had thrown cold water on his team’s accusations, Anderson referred questions to his campaign’s lawyer, Charles Spies, who did not respond.
On the opposite side of the parking lot, Motley said Anderson had already apologized to her over the accusations.
But typical of the campaign’s latter days, even that was disputed.
“I just said ‘I’m sorry’ — a generic ‘I’m sorry,’” Anderson said. “Because it’s absolutely accurate.”
