NASA PAO Staff Goes Overtly Political
Federal investigators: Cabinet secretary and potential Clinton running mate Julian Castro violated Hatch Act, Washington Post
“Housing Secretary Julian Castro violated the federal Hatch Act restricting partisan political activity by federal employees when he praised Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during an interview conducted from his government office, government investigators found Monday.”
If next pres leaves NASA alone we get astronauts to @Space_Station on @Commercial_Crew + @NASA_SLS/@NASA_Orion & #JWST launches ? #RNCinCLE
— S. Schierholz (@schierholz) July 21, 2016
Keith’s note: Stephanie Schierholz works for the NASA Public Affairs Office (PAO). Her job is to convey official NASA opinions – opinions that are guided by White House policies. She states that her Twitter account opinions are her own – yet she overtly uses that same Twitter account almost every day – during the day while she is at work – for official business – including the topics that she mentions in her tweet. Her tweet is also embedded in a popular Mashable article. Smells like a Hatch Act violation to me.
She shouldn’t have done that, but she’s also not wrong. I’ve been saying it for the past two years, and I’m saying it again: the best thing for NASA is for the President of the United States to be utterly disinterested and let Congress fund, design and oversee it. Whoever is the President can do nothing but become an obstacle. Their advocacy is neither helpful nor required.
There is no Obama vision for space. There was no Bush vision for space. There was certainly no Clinton vision for space. There hasn’t been a well informed vision of space in decades. Just because an administration lackey (whatever the administration at the time) asserts there is one and produces some policy document that speaks in generalities doesn’t mean, you know, it is real. Space is so far removed from Obama and most of his predecessors expertise and actual detailed vision for the country, they shouldn’t even be expected to have a coherent vision for space. They can have a policy of course, and that can be haggled with with congress to formulate national policy, but a policy is not a vision, period.
The absolute last thing we need is another President giving another ridiculous inspirational speech and another NASA Administrator talking about “the President’s vision”, or another revamp of the direction because the current Chief Scientific Advisor has a different opinion. We need them to just go away and do nothing. For years. If that happens, what Schierholz is basically correct. Commercial will proceed apace, and probably accelerate for SpaceX, Orbital and Boeing. SLS will launch and do it’s thing because Congress hugely supports it. It will all happen under the noses of an Administration which does not and should not care and an American public that has no clue it exists until they see it in their favorite news app.
So no more dumb speeches. No more policy documents or blue ribbon panels. No more talk or navel gazing nonsense. President whoever go talk about roads or education or something, and maybe, just maybe we’ll actually go beyond LEO in the next 8 years. But the dead last thing we need is to hear what is on Trump, Clinton or any other politicians mind.
I can’t blame NASA for pleading for no more reset buttons. Things, at least in terms of LEO access, are pretty good right now and more-or-less on schedule. Stopping everything and trying to redefine all missions and goals at this late juncture will just be throwing treacle into the works.
Cancel SLS/Orion and redirect the $$ to multiple missions and technology development. Multiple overlapping bell shape curves reduces the per mission and technology program costs. Providing a stable market reduces launches cost with more flights as excess, expendable LVs and capsules are eliminated
There is absolutely no logic maintaining this failed direction and not pressing the transition/reset button other than to buy votes.
It sound like an honest mistake to me; let’s see what ensues on that account.
On the other hand: wall, meet handwriting.
Legal technicalities and lingo are everything here.
Well, if she gets prosecuted (or even disciplined) for this, then all it will do is reinforce the view that there are different rules for high level people than for everyone else. Castro’s was a clear violation of the Hatch Act (he even gave the interview in the HUD studio) and he did not even get a slap on the wrist.
It appears to be her personal account, explicitly labeled as “views my own” and sent after business hours. I don’t have a problem with her speaking her mind on her own time. If her bosses do, that’s an employment issue, not a legal or political issue.
My main concern would be Keith’s note that “she overtly uses that same Twitter account almost every day… for official business.” If that is the case, then she’s certainly causing confusion about which Twitter posts are her own views and which are official.
That’s an excellent point. It’s high time that people understood what the difference is between personal and business communications are and how to keep them separate. It’s not hard, but it does require some effort and attention.
That’s similar to Mrs. Clinton’s email issue, isn’t it?
Doesn’t sound like a potential Hatch Act violation at all. Hatch Act does not prohibit expressing political opinions while on duty, but only engaging in “activity directed at the success or failure or a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.” The tweet quoted does none of those prohibited things.
Smells bad to me too. And more generally, like so much of what the current administration has done, up to and including BHO himself, it sets a precedent that those on the Left will not enjoy when employed by the other party.
But they broke the window, scuffed out the line, rewrote the rule book, so there’s no point in their complaining when turnabout comes about. Eh?
She refers to “the next president” and includes the overtly political hashtag #RNCinCLE for the convention – her comments were clearly intended to be seen in a political context. Nothing will happen to her though since NASA looks the other way on things like this.
I don’t see this at all as violation of the Hatch Act. #1 I can’t even tell from the Tweet whether she endorses Trump or Clinton or someone else and #2 Isn’t her statement pretty much what should be and is the NASA line? That in order for NASA to work long-term, we need to stay the course between Administrations? If this were a NASA press conference and a PAO person said “I’m hoping the new Administration will maintain the continuity of our current programs” would anyone seriously say that was a violation of the Hatch Act? Certainly one can disagree with whether the current course is the best course, but I would expect someone from NASA PAO to say exactly what she said.
Has NASA ever provided any formal guidance on how social media accounts should be established by employees for official purposes versus personal, non-official purposes? One’s name is often synonymous with ‘NASA employee’, so does that mean the employee cannot use their name for personal social media accounts, or should an alias be used on official accounts? I assume some of the NASA employees commenting on NASAWatch use an alias for exactly this reason; of course, if they expose their true beliefs on NW, then good possibility the NASA management would hold it against the person. At NASA people frequently can’t or won’t speak their minds for this reason.
This is not a violation of the Hatch Act since she is not campaigning for any candidate. It is not a violation of NASA IT policy since she is using a private twitter account and thus is assumed to be speaking as an individual rather than a NASA representative. The private use of NASA IT resources is permitted on an occasional non-interference basis during free time. If she is officially representing NASA on twitter she should have a separate official account.