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"To Prevent Pernicious Political Activities" : The 1938 Kentucky Democratic Primary And The Hatch Act Of 1939., Raymond Michael Myers Iv
"To Prevent Pernicious Political Activities" : The 1938 Kentucky Democratic Primary And The Hatch Act Of 1939., Raymond Michael Myers Iv
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
By 1938, popularity for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal had declined. The 1938 Kentucky Democratic primary, pitting Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley against Governor A.B. “Happy” Chandler, became a referendum on the administration. During the campaign, each candidate accused their opponent of employing government resources to buy votes. This national scandal prompted Congress to enact the Hatch Act of 1939. Still in effect, this law restricted how federal employees interacted with political campaigns. This paper contends that the 1939 Hatch Act served as a constitutional backlash against the New Deal’s federal expansion and the rise of the administrative state. …