HUD website blames looming shutdown on ‘Radical Left’
The message, in a blazing red banner at the top of HUD’s official website, is raising questions about a potential Hatch Act violation.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development plastered its website with a message about the “Radical Left” on Tuesday, raising questions about a potential Hatch Act violation as the White House squares off with congressional Democrats over a government funding deadline.
The HUD.gov website featured both a pop up window and a red banner at the top of the main page with the same message on Tuesday morning.
“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” the message reads. “The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”
HUD Secretary Scott Turner posted a similar message about the “radical left” on his official X account Tuesday morning, adding that, “HUD.gov has been updated accordingly.”
Kevin Owen, a partner at Gilbert Employment Law, said the website’s message is “likely to be a Hatch Act violation.”
“The fact that it has been posted on an agency website on behalf of an agency does not make it immune from Hatch Act prosecution,” Owen said. “In fact, it makes it more likely that the individuals who have posted this were acting in their official capacity and not in their personal political speech, which is going to make it more likely to be a Hatch Act violation.”
The Hatch Act is an 86-year-old law that limits political activity by federal employees.
“The Far Left is barreling our country toward a shut down, which will hurt all Americans. At HUD, we are working to keep critical services online and support our most vulnerable. Why is the media more focused on a banner than reporting on the impact of a shutdown on the American people?” HUD spokesman Matthew Maley wrote in response to questions from Federal News Network.
The messaging comes as House and Senate Democratic leadership say they won’t budge unless Republicans agree to extend healthcare subsidies set to expire at the end of this year. The White House and Republican leaders are pushing for a “clean” seven-week continuing resolution.
The Office of Special Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes Hatch Act violations, declined to comment on the HUD message.
Owen said the language in the message about the “radical left” is coded toward a particular political party, making it likely to be considered partisan under the Hatch Act.
“If the messaging were slightly different by saying, ‘The President wants to keep the government open, but Congress is not doing its job on funding’, then that would likely not be a Hatch Act violation, because it is not veering into partisan political speech,” Owen said.
A HUD official, sharing the agency’s perspective on-background, argued the “message was carefully worded so as not to name a specific party or politician, but rather an ideology.”
If OSC does investigate and prosecute the HUD message, Owen said one key question will be who authorized the website update.
“Obviously someone — whether or not it’s the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, whether it’s the [chief information officer] of HUD, whether it’s an IT specialist or someone from the comms office — was personally involved in making this political messaging known on duty, using government resources, and that’s why it appears very likely to be a Hatch Act violation,” he said.
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