The Hatch Act of 1939. A seminar by Erica Hamrick, U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

hello everyone thank you so much for coming uh to see the presentation on the hatcha I'm going to just introduce for about 90 seconds last week I had an opportunity to visit from family and we decided to watch the HBO series John Adams which was very good and in episode one uh John Adams is is asked to represent some red coat soldiers who are charged with uh murder um in following um a protest which had accidents in it um and some people were killed so he's asked to represent them because no one will will do it in Boston and um at the funeral of the Fallen his cousin Sam Adams asks are you being a little too clever by half representing red coats and he says everyone deserves representation in the court of law and Sam Adam says it's time to pick a side and he says I'm on the side of the law is there another side so here is kind of the separation between the politics and the emotion of the day and kind of the continuity of the rule of law and in our case the conduct of government and this is the point of today's lecture and I'm very much looking forward to hearing and learning about the Hatch Act which is intended I believe and I'm going to learn a lot more about it today but to focus on the continuing continuity of our jobs and keeping the government running kind of separating The Fray of politics aside so that we can do our jobs it's my pleasure to introduce Erica hamri she is the let me get my glasses I don't know where they are oh here they are uh she is the uh Deputy Chief of the Hatch Act unit at the US office of special Council she's worked at the osc since 2012 and has been Deputy Chief of the hatack since hatack unit since 2008 uh she's responsible for investigating allegations of Hatch Act violations litigating hatch acted cases with osc is determined that a violation warrants prosecution she received her jurist doctor with honors from the George Washington University of law uh law school in Washington DC so sit up straight and pay attention she is a person to be reckoned with please come up and it's my pleasure to introduce [Applause] you well good afternoon thank you all for being here I'm I'm excited to be here to talk to you about the Hatch Act um it's a very timely presentation given that we are now in the throws of the presidential election season um so my plan today is I'm going to talk to you about all of the prohibitions of the Hatch Act and I'm going to try to give you some examples of cases that we've had or questions that we're getting in the office so that you can kind of see how these prohibitions come to life and how employees are are getting tripped up with the Hatch Act um um we're going to do questions at the end so I'm going to try to keep my part of it to under an hour so that we have plenty of time for questions at the end and I really do encourage questions um and before I start I just want to do a little plug for why we have the hatch kind of as a segue from what um Richard was saying because you know as I go through my presentation today you're going to see all these things that you can't do because of the Hatch Act Right but it's important to keep in mind that the reason we have a Hatch Act One is make sure that the government operates in a nonpartisan fashion and is is there for you know everyone in the country and not just people who voted a certain way but it's also there to protect you as a federal employee to protect you from being coerced into engaging in any political activity you don't want to engage in to make sure that any promotion or advancement that you have in government is based on your Merit and not based on you know which political party you belong to or which candidate you supported so that's my plug for why we have a hatchet um okay so let's get started we can move to the next slide um so one thing first to know is who is covered by the Hatch Act all Federal Executive Branch employees are covered by the Hatch Act with the exception of the president and the vice president they are not covered by the Hatch Act um also contractors who who you may be working with in in the workplace but they're not federal employees contractors are not covered by the Hatch Act and neither are members of the uniform services but all federal civilian executive branch employees are covered but how they're covered depends on um where they work or what kind of position they hold because there are two categories of employees under the Hatch Act there's those who are less restricted who are free to take an active part in partisan political management and campaigning and there are those who are further restricted and cannot and if we could go to the next slide sure I'll keep talking um so there are some agencies like my agency the office of special counsel where all of the employees are further restricted under the Hatch Act and in the next slide when it pops up you'll see those list of agencies and they're mostly law enforcement investigative or intelligence types agencies and so lucky for you the nuclear Regulatory Commission is not one of those agencies so you're so most employees here are not further restricted um but but on the next slide you'll see um there are certain positions regardless of agency that are also further restricted so for example here any career member of the senior executive service is going to be further restricted under the Hatch Act and I have a slide at the end of the presentation that's going to go into that in a little more detail in terms of what it means to be further restricted um and I'll point out some differences as well in a couple of slides um okay so on the next slide we are going to see things that you can do right so I am going to talk a lot about things you can't do in terms of your political activity but it's important to remember that there's a whole lot you can still do as a federal employee so as you'll see all federal employees can register and vote as they choose you can display campaign signs in your home you can have a political bumper sticker on your personal vehicle and we'll talk a little bit later about driving that vehicle to a government garage um all um employees can be uh members of political parties or political clubs um any kind of nonpartisan activity whether it's issue advocacy or activity related to a nonpartisan election is going to be okay under the Hatch Act um as well and a question that comes up a lot in an election year are um employees who want to serve as election judges you know working for their um local municipality and are we good like should am I good to keep going or should I stop you give us one minute yeah yeah yeah absolutely thank you yes they're saying yes okay so I should power through I'm so sorry it's okay I hate it when that's I think okay so keep okay all right um so employees want to know can they work as an election judge for their local municipality so maybe you know checking people's IDs as they come to vote or you know handing them The Ballot or putting it in the machine or whatever um all federal employees are able to do that under the Hatch Act you know you're performing nonpartisan duties on Election Day for the municipality and that's going to be okay for both less restricted and further restricted employees um so then on this side here so employees as long as you're off duty and away from the workplace all employees can contribute money to political parties and candidates um attend any kind of political meeting a political rally even a political fundraiser is okay for all employees to attend um all employees can sign nominating petitions to get a candidate on the ballot um all employees can wear campaign material again away from the workplace and off duty but hats buttons t-shirts um all of that is going to be okay for federal employees all federal employees um and then all again all employees can follow like or comment on the social media pages of political parties or candidates or partisan political groups I'm going to talk a a little bit more about social media in a few slides and then on the next slide um the um this this is the big difference on this slide between further restricted employees and less restricted employees because less restricted employees as long as they're not on duty or in the workplace as I mentioned earlier can take an active part in partisan political management or campaigning so what that means is you know they can go volunteer for a campaign go door-to-door handing out campaign literature circulate nominating itions speak at a campaign event um they can also become very involved in in Party politics less restricted employees can actually hold office within a political party um maybe a Precinct committee person or a party chairperson that's going to be okay for Less restricted employees um same thing serving as a delegate to A party's nominating convention less restricted employees can do that as well um a couple of questions that come up in election years um I mentioned earlier about election judges kind of Performing those nonpartisan duties on kind of the opposite end of the spectrum are um pole Watchers who are actually working for a political party or a campaign and who are there on Election Day kind of representing the party or the campaign out you know at polling locations less restricted employees can serve in that role as a pole Watcher the further restricted employees cannot um we also get a lot of questions in election years about employees who want to take leave to go either volunteer or work for a campaign and the Hatch Act doesn't does not prohibit that for Less restricted employees they can actually take leave and go volunteer but it is important to remember that even when you're on leave you're still subject to the Hatch Act so some of the prohibitions that we're going to talk about later particularly fundraising is still going to apply to you while you're on leave and working for that campaign um okay so next Slide the definition of political activity it's going to be really important as we start talking about these prohibitions because for purposes of the Hatch Act it has a very specific definition and that is its activity directed at the success or failure of a political party a partisan political group or a candidate for partisan political office and the key there is the word partisan because the Hatch Act is really concerned with partisan political activity so that activity that involves political parties or candidates running with political party affiliation and in terms of um in terms of this definition in the Hatch Act it doesn't matter the level of the election whether it's you know a national election for President Statewide election for governor or even a local election for city council or mayor if the election is partisan then these hatch prohibitions are going to kick in okay so next slide it is equally important though to know and understand what is not political activity for purposes of the Hatch Act um because any kind of like I said earlier nonpartisan activity or any any kind of issue or issue advocacy um even if it's hot button issues where where opinion is very politically divided you know abortion immigration um gun control right if the message is about the issue and the issue only and it's not about a political party or a candidate it is not going to fall within that definition of political activity for hatack purposes and the reason that I emphasize this is because we do get a lot of questions and a lot of complaints even about federal employee on Duty activity but it's not hatch prohibited activity because it falls in this bucket of issue advocacy um so just to give you an example um we recently back um the end of last year received a request um from a member of Congress for us to actually issue a public advisory opinion because this member of Congress was hearing a lot from his constituents who are who are federal employees that they felt like they couldn't speak up at work about what was going on um you know over uh in between Israel and Hamas and um in in Gaza and so he wanted us to issue an advisory opinion about the Hatch Act implications of speaking about the conflict while on duty or in the workplace and so we did Issue an advisory opinion and and posted in our website opining that you know engaging in discussions and opining yourself about what is going on over in the Middle East is not political activity for purposes of the Hatch Act and so the Hatch Act wouldn't bar federal employ employees from voicing their opinions at work um and so that's the kind of thing that we're talking about this issue advocacy um talking about current events that kind of thing is not going to fall within that def definition of political activity it is important to keep in mind though that you can't pair an issue advocacy message with one about a candidate or a party because now it's going to fall into Political activity territory so just to give you an example um and this was going back in the last Administration we had a federal employee who um printed off an article I think it was in the government executive or one of those kind of you know federal employee uh media outlets and the article was about um the administration's kind of Tamp down on Union time um Union official time and there were some executive orders about that and the article just discussed the executive orders there was nothing in terms of political activity for hatcheck purposes about the article um and so the employee would have been free to circulate that article at work it wouldn't have been been Hatch Act violation however before the employee circulated at work he handw wrote at the Top If you like your good paying union job this is why you don't vote Republican then he photocopied it and then he distributed at work so he took what was a perfectly fine article and turned it into Political activity for hatack purposes and it was a violation so that's what I mean when I say don't don't pair those messages together okay next slide um okay so now that we know what political activity is let's talk talk about the first prohibition um and that is the prohibition against engaging political activity while you're on duty while you're in a federal rumor building while you're wearing uh an official uniform or agency Insignia or using a government vehicle um so I've have lots of things to talk about with this prohibition first I want to talk about on duty and what does it mean to be on duty for purposes of the Hatch Act on duty is when you're in a pay status other than like paid leave like annual leave or sick leave or or what have you so if you're in a pay status you're on duty which means that even when you're teleworking and you're at home if you're getting paid for your time and you're working for the government you're considered on duty for purposes of the Hatch Act which means you can't engage in political activity you can't be posting things on social media or sending off emails um that being said your home does not become a federal rumor building and so we have received questions from employees they want to know while I'm working at home do I have to take the campaign sign down from my friend yard and you no you do not you can leave the campaign sign on your front yard with the caveat that any kind of video call that you engage in you know for your job teams I you probably use team yeah you do use teams we use teams as well if you're on a teams call and people can see you don't place your camera in a position so that the campaign yard sign is is hanging out in the background um we've even had uh cases where employees actually wore like a campaign hat during a team's call like with his work group group um that's going to be a problem because again you're still on duty uh let me give you some more examp well actually before we do that let's talk about go back to bumper stickers because I was asked specifically to talk about bumper stickers so I mentioned earlier that you can have a political bumper sticker on your personal vehicle and and that is the case um in fact you can do whatever you want with your personal vehicle away from the the workspace but the question becomes well what if you drive your personal vehicle to work and park it in a government garage with which I think you have underneath this building here and so what we advise there is a Hatch Act regulation on point that says you can have a partisan political bumper sticker on your personal vehicle and park it in a government lot or garage and so we advise that just that you can have a partisan political bumper sticker on your vehicle and park it um what we caution employees against though is turning your vehicle into a campaign mobile and we've SE and then parking it in the government lot or garage that's going to be a problem under this prohibition and we've seen various iterations of the campaign mobile over the years um we've had um you know pickup trucks with like a giant sign in the back of the truck um one year we actually had a person who uh vehicle was like completely shrink wrapped in like a campaign sign I think it was for Bernie Sanders and drove that to work um so that's the kind of thing where we advise not to to have a campaign mobile if you're entire back windshield is a is a sticker a campaign sticker a campaign sign we're going to advise to take that down while you're driving it in the government Lauder garage so that's the bumper stickers and I'm sure there'll be lots of questions at the end about that um so going back to some other examples of um ways that employees uh have have violated this prohibition or questions that we've received in the office um so we had a case back after the last presidential election with a postal Service employee who was actually wearing a camp pain hat was wearing a Maga hat while delivering mail and so what happened was some customers complained that their mail carrier was wearing campaign gear while they were he was delivering the mail and the postmaster spoke to the employee and the employee stopped wearing the Hat great but what the employee then did was he posted a picture of himself on Facebook in his postal service uniform wearing the campaign hat and then we got a complaint about it and and started investigating and then found out that not only did he do that he was also delivering mail wearing the Hat um so that would be a violation of this prohibition it's got the the you know the uniform the on duty the in the workplace um he ended up serving a 30-day suspension without pay for his activity and actually we just speaking of the postal service we just got a complaint in I think yesterday the day before about a postal employee up in New Hampshire during the the primary driving his postal truck with a trump sign in the front wind Shield that also is a violation um when we're going to be investigating that um we've had employees H um who had in their offices like a a President Biden bobblehead doll that we've told them they have to take down now that President Biden's a candidate um we've had employees wearing Trump bracelets to work that we've told them they have to to stop usually when we get these kind of cases we try to get them to just stop the activity and if they if they do that then usually usually they're just going to get get by with a warning um we had a question recently well actually it was in the fall after um some of the uh the activity in Georgia with the the the criminal case going on down there someone wanted to know if they could have a coffee mug in the workplace that had Rudy giuliani's mug shot on it and I advised the person that the Hatch Act wouldn't prohibit it because Rudy Giuliani was not a candidate for anything but I cautioned him against you having a mug with former president Trump's mug shot on it because he is a candidate so that would be a problem to have that in the workplace um we had a case where an employee wore a truth social hat to work and another employee thought that was a Hatch Act violation um because truth social is you know associated with former president Trump we actually advised that that was not political activity because despite that Association it it's still a social media platform and we didn't think wearing that hat was enough for us to say oh that's directed at the success of former president Trump's candidacy um but we did tell someone who wanted to wear a t-shirt that said anyone under 75 that that was a problem um given kind of the Two Front Runners in the presidential election so we told them that that was political activity and they should not wear that shirt in the workplace um oh and then my last example before I move on um and this is this is a case we had a lot of years ago um but it's just an interesting way that someone violated this prohibition um we had an employee who was volunteering at a campaign event and to get into the campaign event it was a you know a secured area uh she had to show govern you know show ID and she chose to use her PIV card as her ID which is fine but then she left it around her neck for the entire time she was volunteering at the campaign event and we got to C complain about it because someone's you know the PIV card you know clearly identifies you as a federal employee in your agency um and so someone thought that was a violation of this prohibition and and we concluded that was but you know she got a warning letter for that activity but so just a unique way that that was violated in the past um all right I'm going to keep rolling um next slide one thing to know about this prohibition is that there are certain um presidential appointees with Senate confirmation and certain Executive Office of the President employees those highlevel White House commissioned officers who are not subject to the on duty prohibition the reason being is they are considered on duty 247 and so if they couldn't engage in political activity while on duty they would never be able to engage in political activity so I think here I think it's probably just the Commissioners who are going to fall I don't you may have other P but definitely the Commissioners are Commissioners are going to fall into that category they're not subject to this prohibition however they are subject to all of the rest of the prohibitions we're going to talk about all right so next slide so we're still talking about the on duty prohibition because even though we do definitely get the cases about the PIV card and the hats and the bumper stickers on the vehicles really the way we see federal employees violate this prohibition the most is through the modern way we communicate and that is electronic communications whether it's email or social media or um blog you know posting to a Blog texting or what have you um that's where employees really get tripped up and so things to keep in mind about that um for purposes of the Hatch Act we're only concerned with whether you're on duty or in the workplace it doesn't matter to us whether you're using a government computer though your agency might care but it doesn't matter to us whether you're using a government computer a personal computer um you know your personal iPhone your personal social media account your personal email it doesn't matter if you're on duty or in the workplace that's going to be the trigger for us um so if you are on duty or in the workplace even if you're working from home and you have your personal phone you can't be posting messages or sharing messages or liking messages on social media that that meet that definition of political activity you know that are supporting or opposing candidates or political parties same thing with emails and it doesn't matter if you compose the message yourself and send it off or post it or somebody else posts it or somebody else send you the email and you forward the email or you share the post once you're further Distributing that political message and you're doing it on Duty it's going to be a Hatch Act violation um let's see oh so the note there at the end of the slide the prohibition also includes Union email activity if it meets that definition of political activity so let me give you an example of a case one of actually one of my very first cases at osc a lot of years ago um it was a case involving uh a a local union president who had forwarded to like 300 other employees an invitation to a meet the candidate event the the reason that the employee forwarded it on is because it was a union sponsored meet the candidate event so he felt like he was just you know performing his Union function and forwarding this invitation on the problem was he did it while he was at work and even though it was a union event it was still a meet the candidate event um so it was a violation he he ended up getting a 60-day suspension without pay um 60 yeah um we've also had cases where Union officials have um organized like volunteer efforts for like the Union's endorse candidate right like go out knock on doors support the candidate and that's perfectly fine to do and organize you just can't do it while you're on work while you're on duty or at work so we had a case where a union official was doing that was sending out all these emails organizing these volunteer efforts but doing it while on government time and that's a problem um we actually have a case right now involving um a union official but it's not doesn't deal with Union activity he just happens to be a union official um he works for the VA and um he had posted some messages on Facebook um in support of a Democratic party candidates and he did this while he was on duty there's all he also had some post that that solicited money so that's another prohibition we're going to talk about um but then kind of the Clincher at least for me the thing that he did was on Election Day he was at work um on duty outside on the VA grounds and he recorded a Facebook live video of of himself encouraging all his you know followers to you know Vote for This slate of candidates on Election Day again all on duty on VA grounds um so that's a case right now it's actually in litigation so I don't have an outcome yet for you um we're supposed to have a hearing I think sometime this summer um and I'll talk a little bit about kind of our processes at the end but I'll wrap up this Slide by just saying I think I think these days it is so easy to pull pull out your phone and you're scrolling and you're sharing and you're liking and just be really careful if you're on duty when you're doing that um you would be surprised the number of complaints we get about this from from all over um so just be careful a cautionary guidance um okay we can go to the next slide okay um oh right visuals so I have some visuals on this prohibition I'm not going to ask you all to raise hands or anything like that I'm just I'm just going to tell tell you that everything on this first slide currently is going to be prohibited while on duty you're in the workplace because President Biden is a candidate for reelection um we've been getting questions about let's go Brandon I guess for years now and I remember the first time someone called me and asked me about it I I had no idea what they were talking about I'm like why would let's go Brandon be a Hatch Act issue and I quickly learned why um and so for a while we were advising that the Hatch Act would not prohibit that in the workplace because President Biden wasn't a candidate yet but now that he is we've told employees the let's go Brandon has to come down and then the same thing with you know the the old campaign material even though it's from the last election cycle it's still showing support for him he's a candidate it's going to be prohibited um next slide um same thing with um the other major candidate and and I apologize my my the chief of the unit and I were just talking this morning we do need to update our slides to include some of the other candidates um but right now it's it's focused on on the two but we we will update them um however so here we have um items that are directed at the success or failure of former president Trump who is also a candidate um so obviously the make America great again hat um the the 2016 campaign button the tuck Frump shirt which I have to say very slowly so I get it right um and then Mean Tweets 2024 we actually got a question about this a couple months ago and none of us in the hatch unit had heard of Mean Tweets but apparently it is I we did some research it is a pro Trump kind of messaging um they want to want to bring Mean Tweets back um so anything mean tweets 2024 is going to be viewed as political activity because of that okay excuse me next slide so uh candidate photographs we get a lot of questions about candidate photographs in election years um so the hatack going back to the Hatch Act regulations they say that you cannot display a partisan political picture in the federal workplace and so we advise that that generally if an individual is currently a candidate for partisan political office you cannot have a picture of that individual in your office there are two exceptions to that general rule the first deals with the incumbent president so right now President Biden even though he's a candidate he is still the head of the executive branch and you know his picture tends to be in federal buildings right usually as soon as you walk in so we've advised employees that if you have kind of the official portrait of the current president um not altered in any way so no Halos no horns no life-size cutouts but if it's the traditional display of the presidential portrait it's so excuse me that is okay to keep up in your office even though the president is now a candidate for for reelection that only applies to the incumbent president president though um so this year we have this unique situation where we have two presidents and former presidents running the the the head shot of former president Trump is not going to be allowed in the workplace and I've had to tell several people that they need to take the picture down because it's not going to fit that exception however there's another exception that that that would apply to any candidate not just the president and that is what we call the personal photograph exception so this is a photograph that is personal to you meaning that you are in the photograph with the candidate and it was taking at taken at some kind of personal event so not a campaign event but maybe like a wedding or a birthday party or maybe even something like professional like maybe you had the opportunity to go to the White House in your job and you had a picture taken with the president or something like that um or even like up on the hill in a picture with your Senator something like that if if it's that kind of photograph you can have that in the workplace even though that individual is is a candidate for partisan political office um so looking at these these photos here the picture on the left um of President Biden so that was actually from when he was running for office it's his his old campaign slogan there build back better so that you could not have that photograph in the workplace but the middle one the official portrait that would be okay and then the one on the right of former president trump it doesn't fall with the within that personal photograph exception so that would be prohibited okay so next slide um so this slide is here just as a reminder that political activity it's not just about candidates it's about political parties as well so any of these items you know this mask is as useless as a Democrat never apologize for being right or the r is the you know GOP elephant all of that is going to be prohibited on duty or in the workplace and then this last visual slide if you go to the next slide so unlike the last several slides um these items actually are not prohibited in the workplace so looking at the conservative versus liberal you would probably associate them with you know maybe one political party over the other but in the end they're not political parties they're ideologies and so merely having proud conservative or proud liberal you know you know on duty or in the workplace is not going to meet that definition of political activity and then with the with the NRA or the the Mom's demand um Action Group those are issue advocacy groups um um the Hatch Act wouldn't bar you from having their mugs in the workplace one caveat to that though is that a lot of the issue advocacy groups also have an Associated political action committee and the political action committee is a partisan political group because they raise money to give to candidates that you know support their issues um so for example if the NRA mug was actually an NRA pack mug um then that we would advise not to use that in the workplace okay next prohibition so the rest of the prohibitions unlike the last one the rest of the prohibitions apply all the time so 247 whether you're at work at home on duty or off duty um so the first one is that you cannot solicit accept or receive political contributions um some things worth mentioning here again it applies all the time but not just all the time but also by any means so whether it's a face-to-face solicitation um something you send via email even a post on social media a text if you're asking for money to a candidate to a political party it's going to be prohibited under the Hatch Act um with respect to social media we advise um that not only should you not post your own solicitation but you also shouldn't share a solicitation like a solicitation retweet um we had one case with someone on LinkedIn who was celebrating a solicitation um all of that is going to be prohibited under this prohibition let me just give you a quick example um we had a case several years ago with an employee who was using social media to solicit political contributions and the way he was doing it was he was very active in his local political party in fact he held office within the party and what he was doing was posting um invitations to political fundraisers to party fundraisers on his Facebook page and he had like 2,000 plus followers or friends on Facebook um and he would just regularly post these uh part partisan fundraiser invitations on Facebook and we um concluded that was a violation he also had some on duty activity and a couple other things going on and I tell you that because he actually got a 90day suspension without pay um so it wasn't just the social media activity there was more there um but the social media activity was a big part of it um going away from social media just traditional fundraising right as federal employees none of us can host a political fundraiser be a sponsor or a point of contact on an invitation to political fundraiser even serving on a host committee is going to be prohibited for all of us um we can't sell tickets to political fundraisers even inviting people to a fundraiser is going to be a problematic under this prohibition we have a case right now um with actually an a federal government attorney who's been a government attorney for close to 20 years and he violated the Hatch Act by um asking friends and family to contribute money to candidates he supported so you might not thank friends and family like you know but there is no exception for friends and family in the solicitation prohibition so he was asking friends and family to contribute to these candidates he also hosted an event in his home for another candidate and even though he claimed the event was not a fundraiser because people didn't have to pay money to attend excuse me when you looked at the invitation the invitation clearly said that you know contributions were appreciated and at the event you know the candidate asked all the attendees for money um so again this was an attorney there was a lot of knowledge of the Hatch Act um we're actually settling the case right now he's agreed to accept a 130 day suspension without pay um and the knowledge there is key um it's not an element of proving a Hatch Act violation but it's one of the things we take into consideration when when looking at the appropriate penalty um you know whether the person knew or should have known what they were doing was a problem um okay I'm going to move on to the next prohibition so there is an exception one very small narrow minor exception to the prohibition against soliciting political contributions um and I I call it the the union exception the union pack exception and so what this means is that if you are a member of a federal employee union and the union has a pack you can solicit other members for a contribution to the pack as long as the person you are soliciting is not subordinate to you and you're not doing it on duty or in the workplace because then that's going to violate the the on duty prohibition so again so both individuals have to be members of the union and the contribution is only for the unions pack not for the candidates that the union is endorsed or anything like that just for the pack um and and no supervisor subordinate relationship but if the if the solicitation meets that criteria then that is not a violation of of the solicitation prohibition and if people have questions about that we'll we'll handle them at the end okay the next prohibition um is the prohibition against using your official Authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election um and to I always tell audiences like to me this prohibition has been around since the Hatch Act was first enacted in 1939 and it really goes to the heart of why we have the Hatch Act Right is that you shouldn't be using your position agency resources to help a political party or candidate so there's a couple of different types of activities that fall under this kind of umbrella prohibition um the first one I want to talk about involves um how how you engage in political activity so I mentioned earlier with especially with the less restricted employees there's a lot you can do you can go out there you can actually speak on behalf of candidates like at a campaign event you can actually even speak at a fundraising event as long as you're not asking for money um but because of this prohibition any political activity you engage in has to be in your personal capacity and not in your official capacity as a federal employee so if you were going to go to a campaign event and you know talk about the candidate and how great the candidate is you couldn't be introduced with your official title or or reference to your agency um similarly if you were going to write like an op-ed about a candidate you supported and why everyone should vote for that candidate same thing you couldn't sign that oped with your official title or reference your position at all you know in in the uh in the oped on the flip side if you're speaking in your official capacity right if you're you're giving a training or if you are you know speaking to the media um if you're speaking in your official capacity you have to keep it official you cannot engage in political activity when speaking in your official capacity um so this became an issue for the last Administration during the the 2020 election cycle and we actually issued a report in the fall of 21 detailing a lot of violations involving this prohibition because there were Administration officials who were out there speaking to the media in their official capacity on behalf of the administration and then they were engaging in political activity and and specifically political activity directed against the the president's opponent in the election um that's going to be a violation of this prohibition um let's see so I have some examples excuse me of people using their official position for and while engaging in political activity in violation of this prohibition um so the first one is a case we actually settled relatively recently um and it involved it involved a political appointee at the Department of Labor who um was uh participating in a teleconference with employees from a private organization um you know in her in her role um with the Department of Labor and in in making small talk with these individuals um who were in a different state than she was and they were having a gubernatorial election she asked one of the individuals who they were supporting in the upcoming election she then went on to express her support for one of the candidates in the election um and so that's a violation of this prohibition because she was you know she was in her official capacity she was engaging in official business on behalf of the Department of Labor and she's you know basically expressing her support to this individual about a candidate in their home state um and she ended up uh serving a 10day suspension without pay we had another case um where uh we actually issued a report to the president on this case it involved a US attorney in Massachusetts and this us attorney was trying to help um a candidate get elected it was a a district attorney candidate and in doing so um she was trying to kind of hurt the campaign of this uh candidate's opponent and she had several conversations with members of the media where she was trying to get the story going that this opponent was was being investigated it was under you know federal investigation and um she wasn't getting any traction on these conversations So eventually she ended up leaking a confidential memo um you know an internal Department of Justice memo that basically said that this guy was going to be under investigation to the media to try to hurt his candidacy um so pretty bad um we investigated that doj oig investigated as well she actually ended up um resigning the day before our reports came out um and then my my last example involves an employee who was not at a high level not a US attorney not not an appointee just a mail carrier at the Postal Service and this was back again in the last election cycle and what she did was um she had a bunch of political mailers that had been paid for that she was supposed to deliver to her customers and instead of doing that she put them in a bin to be disposed of and somebody found them in the bin and um realized they shouldn't have been in the bin because they had been paid for and needed to be delivered and so we got a complaint and during the investigation when she was being interviewed the postal carrier said that she was um morally conflicted delivering lies to people which is why she did not deliver these mailers um that case actually we ended up um litigating that case and she agreed to um resign from her postal service employment and and be debarred from coming back for for several years so just various ways that people have used their positions um in violation of the Hatch Act to help or hurt a political party or candidate um and then the last typee of activity I want to mention here is um activity involving supervisors and subordinates so the Hatch Act regs say that under this prohibition you cannot coer anyone to engage in political activity and that supervisor subordinate relationship is inherently coercive and so we advise that supervisors should not you know ask suggest or imply that their subordinate employees vote a certain way or engage in certain types of political activity that would be a violation of this prohibition and a serious one because again going back to what I said in the beginning part of the reason we have a Hatch Act is to protect you from engaging from being coerced into Political activity um so we had a case a lot of years ago this is going back to the m McCain Obama election um where we had a gs15 supervisor um prior to election day had a mandatory meeting with all of his subordinate staff and he started the meeting by telling everyone that he had been um a lifelong Republican but that this year he was going to vote for Obama and then gave all the reasons why he was going to vote for Obama he then asked his employees to raise their hand if they were going to vote for Obama um and when after some of them kind of uncomfortably did he said well then raise your hand if you're going to vote for McCain um so so kind of bad you know in terms of a supervisor being in that mandatory meeting with their boss um he ended up after our investigation he ended up resigning from his from his employment um but we've even had situations where employees have reached out to us we had um an employee call us because on Election Day you know we have time where we can go vote like admin leave if our polling place closes you know too early um and uh she she called us because she had sent her boss an email to let him know hey I'm going to take like an hour of admin leave so I can go vote before the poll closes and he responds resped you know that's fine just forget don't forget um you know vote for a Democrat so maybe not on the scale of the raise your hand but still no less coercive um okay next slide all right um so the next prohibition is that you cannot be a candidate for partisan political office and a partisan political office is um an office for which any candidate is running as representing a political party so Republican Democrat green party libertarian it's going to be partisan political office that's going to be prohibited a couple of things worth mentioning here um one is I mentioned earlier um if it's a party office so not a public office but office within a political party the less restricted employees can actually run for those offices that's not considered a partisan political office um also if the election is nonpartisan meaning that none of the candidates are running with political party affiliation um then the Hatch Act does not prohibit federal employees from being a candidate in that election we do recommend checking with your agency ethics official just to make sure there aren't any other rules like conflict of interests but generally that's going to be okay um caveat to that though is that we are starting to see a lot more nonpartisan elections that are actually for partisan political office and we just recently like within the past month issued a new advisory opinion that's on our website addressing this issue um and what we've advised is that if political parties are getting involved so we've seen a lot of cases where the election's nonpartisan there's no affiliation on the ballot but political parties are endorsing candidates you know and then you know handing out sample um you know ballots with their endorsed candidates and the nonpartisan offices are on that or even if there's not an endorsement one of the candidates is actively working with the political party to get them elected and kind of holding themselves out as as a Party candidate if we see that kind of activity then the election is going to be for a partisan political office under the Hatch Act and federal employees aren't going to be able to run so my advice is if you are thinking about running for a nonpartisan office G give us a call and my contact information is at the end just to make sure we can kind of walk through any any pitfalls there and then lastly there are some designated localities um Montgomery County is one of them where um federal employees can actually run for local office even if the election's partisan as long as they run as an independent candidate um so for example most of them are in the Sur DC and the surrounding areas but for example DC is one so if you lived in DC you could actually run for mayor or city council because they're local offices you would just have to run as an independent candidate um and again also check with your ethics official about that um and I will tell you this prohibition it seems pretty straightforward but we do get a lot of complaints every year with federal employees who are running uh for partisan political office I had a case where the employee actually she was a VA nurse still is um for now um who ran for governor of Illinois and um we got the case like a week after she announced her candidacy and I immediately called her and told her like hey you're covered by the Hatch Act you can't run for governor um and despite that she she dug in and she ran and she we have an initial decision we we filed a complaint against her with the Merit systems protection board um we have the initial decision the judge has ordered her removed and debarred from coming back for at least two years um and it's now it's up on appeal to the full mspb but but it happens every year we get one one of those cases next slide so this last prohibition I will tell you about it but I will also tell you that we never get complaints alleging violations of this prohibition so be aware of it it's there um but we don't see employees violating it and that is that you cannot knowingly solicit or discourage the political activity of anyone who has business pending before your employing office um and we use the term employing office but it's actually defined very specifically in the statute and you can see it up there on the slide one thing to know about this violation is that it is a knowing violation you have to know at the time that you're engaging in the activity that the person has business pending before your office so if you're a less restricted employee and on the weekend you volunteered for a campaign and went door too handing out campaign literature and you get back to work the next weekend next week and find out oh one of those houses that you went to actually that person that lives there has business pending before your your office you've not violated the Hatch Act if you didn't know at the time you were engaging in the activity it's not going to be a violation all right and then lastly just a oh oh the further restricted employees let me not forget them so again we're talking about the career sces um and I don't I don't think you don't have administrative law judges do you just administrative judges well well for anyone who's an administrative law judge you are also further restricted but I think it's mostly going to be the career sces so as I mentioned at the beginning the career sces cannot take an active part in partisan political management or campaigning and so some of the things I mentioned earlier that less restricted employees can do you know volunteering for a campaign going door to-door handing out literature all of that is going to be prohibited for further restricted employees but the two bullet points here I want to emphasize for further restricted employees because I think it's less intuitive than the going and volunteering for a campaign is what I like to refer to as modern-day campaign leafletting um so the hatch drgs have all these examples about how you can't pass out campaign literature as a further restricted employee well nowadays there's not a lot of passing out of campaign literature it's mostly done electronically so that's what those last two bullet points are getting at if you're further restricted you cannot forward an email from a political party or or a candidate or a campaign even off duty and away from the workplace it's it's an absolute prohibition same thing with social media you can't share um or um retweet a message that's coming from a political party or a campaign because that's viewed as kind of modern-day leafletting so that's that's the the further restricted employees and then lastly penalties um so I've mentioned um oh you can no that's fine you can go to that slide so I've mentioned as I've I've spoken for the past 50 minutes or so several um disciplinary actions that have resulted um from Hatch Act violations so the the penalties are actually per statute and they range anywhere from a letter of reprimand all the way up to removal and a debarment period for up to five years um if we find if we investigate and find that an employee has violated the Hatch Act we then make a determination of whether we think the violation warrants disciplinary action and if it does then we can file a complaint with the Merit assistance protection board and pursue disciplinary action in that route um we also settle a lot of cases um particularly because for like six years there was no board because there weren't any enough board members so we did a lot of settling of cases um and that would involve a three-party settlement agreement with the employee the employees agency and us so those are the penalties the last slide so in addition to going after employees and investigating them and pursuing disciplinary action against them we also have an advisory function when it comes to the Hatch Act we can provide you advice on the law and since we're the only agency that enforces the Hatch Act if you come to us and we give you a thumbs up to go then you're going to be okay um so we we provide advice in several Fashions we have a hotline that you can call and leave a message and someone will get someone will get back to you if not that day then the next day um and we have an inbox and actually I'm the one who's responding to the inbox right now and I'm doing a good job staying on top of them so you should get a response within a day or two um and that email address is there as well um we also have a bunch of information on our website a lot of FAQs a lot of sample advisory opinions um and if you go to the very beginning of this presentation my direct phone number and email address is there so you can always Reach Out directly to me if you have a question and I would be more than happy to answer it for you and with that I'll open it up to questions Erica there's been a bit of discussion about school boards and whether or not a person could run um or participate on the school board of directors so so school boards are one of those elections that I was mentioning earlier um where they a lot of them tend to be designated nonpartisan but I would say in the last two years or so there's a lot of Schoolboard elections that are not nonpartisan and so particularly in this area um we've we found a lot of Schoolboard elections in this area although designated nonpartisan they are in fact for partisan political office under the Hatch Act so I know like in Virginia Fairfax County Arlington County I don't know that we've had one with Montgomery County so I I don't know about that um but even like even further out in Virginia I think with like Spotsylvania County um there have been a lot of Elections where just the political parties are very involved um Lowden county is another one Virginia and and again there's kind of the bright line if if the political parties are endorsing candidates even if that party affiliation is not on the ballot if the political parties are endorsing candidates we view that as an election for partisan political office and federal employees cannot participate The Only Exception is if it is in a designated locality so for example in Fairfax County Virginia it is a designated locality so you could still run for Schoolboard you would just have to run as an independent candidate which means you couldn't be endorsed by a political party you couldn't work in conjunction with a political party you'd have to be truly independent we're going to take a question in the room go ahead just a follow-up question um so Howard County uh the boards are not um Affiliated but one candidate keeps showing up and getting endorsement of the local County uh I don't know how to put council member or whatever the local uh so even if one candidate shows up does everyone then have to withdraw so it so the endorsement has to be from a party so if the endorsement is just from like a an elected official that's not going to be enough for us to say the election is for partisan political office but even if just one candidate is getting the endorsement of a political party that is going to turn the whole election um and so a federal employee would only be able to stay in if they live in a designated locality and run as an independent thank you I'll send an email okay um does any of this uh the Hatch Act um is it only for like through I know we kind of highlighted during election season but does it end like once the elections are over like we can celebrate if our candidate won or anything like that oh that's a that's a good question um so I the Hatch Act is around all the time yeah but yeah so once but once an election is over and the individuals are no longer candidates then then yes you can certainly you know the the day after the election you could come in and and celebrate or what have you um the only thing I'll caution is you know with with the presidential election you know there's that period of time between election day and January 6th right where the the the votes are actually cast um in terms of the electors um where where technically there's still candidates um but most activity is not going to meet that definition of political activity right if the day after the election you wear a trump or a Biden button in the workplace no one no one can vote for them at that time but we have cautioned employees that you know trying to persuade an elector to like change their Vote or or or cast their vote a certain way that would still be political activity and and um so you always mentioned during our um official time right but when we go to the polling place and we're on our either personal time or sometimes we're given um leave for that so at that time for example you mentioned wearing a shirt or something like that that that would be okay right on your own time even though we that actually could potentially influence somebody in line or something like that right right yeah I there might be there might be some local rules about what you can wear when you vote um and certain distances but from a hatack perspective sure on Election Day you're off duty you can wear whatever you want to the polling place thank you okay we're going to take a question from the audience the virtual audience Matthew I invite you to come off mute and ask your question yeah thanks and thanks to Erica for the presentation today and thanks also to Larry and N for setting this up uh I appreciate the clarification that was given earlier on uh photographs and the exceptions um the question I have is related to television uh so it's not uncommon in certain places in the agency where we have common break areas that have TVs that folks have the ability to watch Major news networks which are pretty partisan nowadays uh our staff and supervisors at risk by having a TV on where they're talking about partisan politics probably not so this this question does come up a lot and we actually have an FAQ on our website addressing it because of how often it has come up we've advised that having even cable news which which I recognize can be um slanted uh I'll choose my words carefully um Evena having cable news on in the workplace in and of itself is not going to be political activity um you know whether it's a it's a general like agency TV or if you have one in your office um I just I just provide some caution though right because sometimes having that in the workplace can then prompt people to start having discussions about what they're seeing and that may lead people down the political activity in the workpl workplace path so I I I you know Express caution there and also for supervisors you know it's one thing for an employee to have a TV on with with this type of of you know um programming but if you're a supervisor you just need to think about what kind of environment you're creating for your sub your subordinates to come in and talk to you if you have this blasting in the background um so we have cautioned supervisors you know against having that you know on and loud when they're trying to interact with subordinates because it can create kind of an uncomfortable environment there okay thank you I see you have a question and um James and Brett I'm going to get to you in a second but one of the questions that came through in the chat while you were presenting I think kind of naturally follows this um one of the questions was if discussing topics like immigration or the Second Amendment during lunch break at work and the conversation brings in the different political party policies with respect to these issues is that a violation of the Hatch Act so kind of like the new news we're watching the news something comes up we start having a discussion and it goes down that road is that considered a violation sure so it depends and I know that's not the best answer in the world but it's it's really hard when it comes to conversations and not having the actual facts because one person's idea of having a conversation about policy may be very different than someone's idea of what having a conversation about policy is right um so I'll try to provide some guard rails um and one if you're at lunch and you're and you're not paid for your lunchtime and you're not in the Federal Building then you can talk about whatever you want but assuming that you're still in the Federal Building or you're on duty if you're truly talking policy and why one policy is better than the other even if one policy is you know one party's policy versus another and the conversation is about policy it's going to be very difficult for us to say that that's political activity but if that conversation about policy is also therefore that's why this party is better and we need more members of this party in Congress or we need a president that represents this party then then that policy discussion is veering in the direction of political activity and I know there's a lot of room in between those two bookends um but like I said it's hard to advise without having actual facts so employees just need need to be careful if you keep if you stick to policy and don't start talking about the parties and about the candidates you're going to be okay under the Hatch Act thank you we'll go ahead and take the question in the room and and then people online I see you we're getting to you next sure and and I think you kind of addressed the question that I had which is and it's telework and flexible work schedules make kind of an interesting question about when are you on duty when are you not so my example is that I work at home I have a neighbor uh that I often go for a walk with he's a bit more political than I am the conversation often goes into the direction I normally clam up and I'm able to kind of say ah this would get me into head I'm not going to talk about this but I'm just curious how you know if you're in that situation where you're you know you meet someone for lunch you you're so you're not at your job but you're kind of in the middle of your work day so no that's a good question um and yeah the the the big increase in teleworking has from an evidentiary perspective made our jobs harder as well because you do have a lot of employees who are teleworking and a lot of agencies don't don't require even like the clock in clock out it's like I worked a 9 hour day so it makes it hard my best advice is I mean if you're if you're at lunch and you're out walking talking to your neighbor you can do what you want to do like we're not going to view that as as you know on duty time if well assuming they don't get paid for lunch here right okay right so you're you're on your time then and I I think you're fine um you know if you are some my advice that i' I've given people when that this question has come up is if you are someone who flexes a lot of during the day and has a tendency to engage in political activity you know social media email I I would keep track of your time because if we get a complaint that's going to be the best way to tell us hey look I I wasn't on duty um I will tell you we've had cases where we've had complaints about employees engaging in social media activity on duty we start investigating the employee has said you know they Tork that day and they you know they were they weren't on duty during that time um and we've we've actually had situations where we've gone back to the agency and had the agency pull the employees emails and can show that well you know in the five minutes leading up to the Tweet you were actually sending official emails and in the minutes after you were sending official email so you were on duty during that time even though you were Maxi flexing so so I just be careful and just try you know if again like I said if you do have a tendency to flex and engage in political activity just try to keep track of it it's a great way to shut convers oh sure break you mentioned between official Communications so what be reasonable break well so I will say I mean even if you're taking a break during the work day I mean unless it's your lunch break you're still being paid for that time so you're still on duty so unless it was a true flexing like you know I'm going to take an hour and go do something and not work for an hour but if you just decide I'm just gonna you know take a five minute break here you can't take a five- minute break and start engaging in political activity because you you are still getting paid for that time so really in the end you need to ask yourself am I getting paid by the government right now for this time and if the answer is yes then don't engage in the political activity okay let's take uh James you've been patiently waiting if you wouldn't mind coming off mute and asking your question yeah it the one thing I always find very hazy on this is is is not if it's relative to like an activ for a political party but you know it gets into the definition of what constitutes a partisan political group because you know is that just like any John Doe group on Facebook that you know has opinions that you know because of of their views politically one way or are you talking about like defined organizations that that you know may not be a political group The eles but lean one way and you know are soliciting money from the government so I I I would like to get your a better concept of what you consider a a political partisan group right and if I can add to that one of the questions in the chat was um the person said serious question though because those liberal and conservative slogans are allowed can you say vote for a liberal or liberals support government workers things like that oh that's a tough question okay let me go to the partisan political group question first so so I agree with you the partisan political group question is is a tricky one um we have a definition in the Hatch Act regulations that's not the best definition in the world um it's any group that is like affiliated with a political party or a candidate and and generally that's that's the good part of the definition so any any group that you know is is supporting a candidate or is like I said affiliated with a political party they are going to be considered a par of some political group um but one of the definitions is any group that engages in political activity and that's very broad that would include the union so we we tend to um we tend to kind of um narrow that last definition in the Hatch Act regs and and and just for as background we don't have control over the Hatch Act regulations OPM does so so we were not responsible for creating these regulations and we have tried over the years to get them updated to no avail so we're kind of stuck with what we have and that that definition for that last part you know engages in political activity is is Broad so we tend to look at groups to see if kind of the their purpose is to engage in political activity um and this becomes relevant because I mentioned earlier these issue advocacy groups there's a lot of issue advocacy groups out there and a lot of them are formed um as 501 C4s under the IR s tax code um and and what that means is they're not c3s c3s can't engage in any political activity the C4s can as long as it's not the majority of what they do and so a lot of these issue advocacy groups are formed as 501 C4s the problem is in my humble opinion A lot of them are not necessarily following the the tax code because a lot of them engage in a lot of political activity and so what we look at is you know what is the purpose of the group was it was it form to engage in issue advocacy or was it form to to really engage in political activity um and and that's kind of and we have a really long advisory opinion on our website where we really parse out this partisan political group issue but it's tough and I will tell you I mean we we have a running list in the office but we constantly get questions about new groups where we have to just analyze we have to research them and analyze whether they're a partis political group um going back to your question though I think you know any group that you may you know on Facebook or on social media that that is associating itself with a candidate even if it's not necessarily um you know a a formed organization if it's like um you know uh I'm trying to think of one I've seen recently uh you know just I'm just making this up but like feds for Trump or feds for Biden or something like that and it's a Facebook group I would consider that you know hatch territory that's going to be a partisan political group so you shouldn't be retweeting their posts for example while you're on the workplace um going to the question from from um the from the one that you read me about liberals um and conservative so they are ideologies um and so that's why kind of wearing the proud liberal proud conservative button is not going to raise any Hatchet concerns but when you start comparing that with a voting message that's where I think that that you might fall into Hatch territory because that that could be construed as voting for certain candidates or voting for certain political parties so I I that's not one that has come up before but I would probably caution people against wearing a button that says vote for a liberal um for example we this question came up during the the midterm elections um because the the Supreme Court the abortion case had come out and we had a lot of questions about people talking about the Supreme Court court case and the issue of abortion in the workplace and and generally you know we advise that it's not political activity it's issue advocacy but people wanted to know could I wear like you know vote for pro-choice candidates in the workplace and we we advise employees against doing that okay thank you um just a friendly reminder to everyone in the room if you do have a question please use the microphone because people in the chat cannot hear our questions if we're not using the mic um with with that being said Brett you've been waiting for a quick minute do you want to come off mute and ask your question Maris thank you so much and thank you for this presentation so I know um in the last cycle uh you came out with um some clarification on messenging um regarding for example hashtag resist and Maga as phrases that um would have H hatcheck implications I was just curious if um you or osc was looking at any additional ones that federal employees should be leery about using um this time around or any updates to that list so to speak and the other thing I just wanted to point out just for region one employees who live in Pennsylvania you are not allowed to be pow workers in Pennsylvania under the Pennsylvania Constitution um so talk to your Regional Council before you volunteer to be a pole worker just in case your state has any weird issues with respect to federal employee eligibility but sorry I just wanted little PSA there but um thank you again for this presentation no that that's good to know I did not know that about Pennsylvania I will have to remember that when I'm speaking to certain audiences um so going back to your question about um like certain like slogans or or hashtags we we did Issue an opinion I think in this past fall dealing with campaign slogans so it was specific to campaign slogans um so for example people obviously make America great again right that that one is still around um but then um President Biden's new campaign slogan is um oh it's on one of the pictures I totally just hold on it totally just slipped out of my head what is it it is is it thank you finish the job yes finish the job is political activity um we also um offered some advice about build back better because build back better was the campaign slogan back in 2020 but after President Biden became president some of his official like initiatives and programs used that build back better language and so this advisory opinion talks about how you know agencies that have some of these build back better programs they're not now you know prohibited from referring to them in that way but for example an employee still couldn't wear like a build back better shirt into the workplace so we we kind of um you know um kind of thread the needle there with the build back better so we did issue that um but I can't I can't think of anything else I know um there have been some questions about some of the um the the signs that you see outside of um like uh like road projects like I know coming across the Roosevelt Bridge there's a sign right there like building building a better something building better America build thank you building better America um and you'll see those on some signs that have been funded by by government grant money we've we've advised that that's not you know a Hatch Act violation to have that on Federal Pro uh projects um but those are the only examples I can think of I thank you does anyone in the room have any other questions okay Aaron you have the floor so you answered most of my question but there was I probably shouldn't have put the more obvious example um but since you can speak to you know identifying yourself as a liberal or a conservative right and you can also talk about policy and say you know uh you know I support government workers and you know we could talk about you know the schedule F issues right and not wanting to you know go after government workers in that way can you connect those two and say that you know that's that's one of the reasons why I have liberal values is because they support government workers or is that getting too close to everyone knows what you're saying in terms of parties at that point like they know what you're connecting I think in my opinion a party to an issue but you're using something that you said was okay like saying liberal values I that doesn't raise my Hatch Act back I guess um if to to talk about you know your liberal and you support liberal values because you know you think liberal values tend to coincide with you know protecting federal employees or what have you that I think doesn't go far enough into Political activity territory so I I would be okay with that in the workplace I just probably wouldn't push it any further than that uh the question was what was the maximum number of people online and I saw it 1. 297 um we have got some comments about how wonderful this presentation has been that it's been excellent people are very appreciative uh to have it