Lloyd–La Follette Act

The Lloyd–La Follette Act of 1912 began the process of protecting civil servants in the United States from unwarranted or abusive removal by codifying "just cause" standards previously embodied in presidential orders. It defines "just causes" as those that would promote the "efficiency of the service." August 24, 1912, § 6, ,

The Act further states that "the right of employees ... to furnish information to either House of Congress, or to a committee or Member thereof, may not be interfered with or denied."

Legislative history

Under the leadership of Republican Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr., the United States Congress passed the Act with the intention of conferring job protection rights on federal employees they had not previously had. Prior to this, there was no such statutory inhibition on the authority of the government to discharge a federal employee, and an employee could be discharged with or without cause for conduct which was not protected under the First Amendment. James Tilghman Lloyd a Democratic congressman from Missouri, led the effort to pass the bill in the House of Representatives.

The act was passed after the Theodore Roosevelt (in 1902) and Taft (in 1909) administrations prohibited federal employees from communicating with Congress without authorization from their superiors. This language was later placed in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and codified in . The purpose of this Act was to allow Congress to obtain uncensored, essential information from federal employees. Congress intended to allow the federal workers direct access to Congress in order to register complaints about conduct by their supervisors and to report corruption or incompetence.

In '' Arnett v. Kennedy'' the Supreme Court addressed questions about the Act. It held that the Act's standard of employment protection, which describes as explicitly as is feasible in view of the wide variety of factual situations where employees' statements might justify dismissal for "cause" the conduct that is ground for removal, is not impermissibly vague or overbroad in regulating federal employees' speech.

One of the primary purposes of the Act was to protect those who criticize superiors from official retribution. Senator La Follette gave the following example of an abuse sought to be cured by the bill:

The Act was thus the first federal law enacted specifically to protect whistleblowers.

The history and scope of the Act was further described by the Supreme Court of the United States in '' Bush v. Lucas'', 462 U.S. 367, 103 S.Ct. 2404 (1983).

Congressional attention to the problem of motivated removals was again prompted by the issuance of Executive Orders by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft that forbade federal employees to communicate directly with Congress without the permission of their supervisors. ... These "gag orders," enforced by dismissal, were cited by several legislators as the reason for enacting the Lloyd–La Follette Act in 1912, , § 6.FN20 That statute ... explicitly guaranteed that the right of civil servants "to furnish information to either House of Congress, or to any committee or member thereof, shall not be denied or interfered with." FN22 As the House Report explained, this legislation was intended "to protect employees against oppression and in the right of free speech and the right to consult their representatives." FN23 In enacting the Lloyd–La Follette Act, Congress weighed the competing policy considerations and concluded that efficient management of government operations did not preclude the extension of free speech rights to government employees.FN24

Footnote 20. See 48 Cong.Rec. 4513 (1912) (remarks of Rep. Gregg) (" is for the purpose of wiping out the existence of this despicable 'gag rule' that this provision is inserted. The rule is unjust, unfair, and against the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, which provides for the right of appeal and the right of free speech to all its citizens.") A number of the bill's proponents asserted that the gag rule violated the First Amendment rights of civil servants. See, e.g., id., at 4653 (remarks of Rep. Calder) (1912); id., at 4738 (remarks of Rep. Blackmon); id., at 5201 (remarks of Rep. Prouty); id., at 5223 (remarks of Rep. O'Shaunessy); id., at 5634 (remarks of Rep. Lloyd); id., at 5637-5638 (remarks of Rep. Wilson); id., at 10671 (remarks of Sen. Ashurst); id., at 10673 (remarks of Sen. Reed); id., at 10793 (remarks of Sen. Smith); id., at 10799 (remarks of Sen. La Follette).

Subsequent legislation

In 1997, the Justice Department argued that Congress does not have a constitutional right to obtain information from civil servants through unauthorized disclosures. Based on its analysis of disclosure laws and its stance on separation of powers, Justice argued that Congress cannot vest "in executive branch employees a right to provide classified information to members of Congress without official authorization."

In 1997, Congress adopted an anti-gag rule. The government-wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds to pay the salary of any federal official who prohibits or prevents or threatens to prohibit or prevent a federal employee from contacting Congress first appeared in the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1998, , , (1997). In 1997, the Senate passed a prohibition that applied only to the Postal Service, while the House of Representatives passed a government-wide prohibition. The conference report adopted the House version, and a government-wide prohibition has been included in every Treasury-Postal appropriations act since fiscal year 1998.

This provision has its antecedents in several older pieces of legislation, including the Treasury Department Appropriation Act of 1972, the Lloyd–La Follette Act of 1912, and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

In 2006, Rep. John Conyers included the Lloyd–La Follette Act in a list of 26 laws that he contends President George W. Bush violated.house.gov
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See also

* Civil Service
* First Amendment to the United States Constitution
* United States civil service
* Whistleblower

References

External links

GovExec.com briefing for July 23, 1997


CRS report on National Security Whistleblowers



{{DEFAULTSORT:Lloyd - La Follette Act
Civil service in the United States
Civil service reform in the United States
Discrimination in the United States
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Freedom of expression law
Public administration
United States federal labor legislation
United States federal government administration legislation
Whistleblower protection legislation
1912 in American law
62nd United States Congress
United States federal legislation articles without infoboxes
Robert M. La Follette