Now that right-wing media are running with the false allegation that the White House committed a crime by discussing job possibilities with Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, it's time to highlight one very important point. The White House did not condition the possibility that Romanoff drop out of the race if he were to take an administration job. That condition is actually imposed by federal law.

As Richard Painter -- who served as chief ethics lawyer for the president during the Bush administration -- has said about the Romanoff story: “Once again the story is that the job offers were 'conditioned' upon a candidate dropping out of the Senate race. As I have pointed out in the Sestak matter, this 'condition' is already imposed by the Hatch Act on full time Executive Branch employees.”

From Painter's June 3 post on the Legal Ethics Forum blog:

Once again the story is that the job offers were “conditioned” upon a candidate dropping out of the Senate race. As I have pointed out in the Sestak matter, this “condition” is already imposed by the Hatch Act on full time Executive Branch employees. A person who accepts such an Administration job cannot run for office in a partisan election, whether the White House wants him to or not. The White House can offer a part time advisory board position instead, in which case the Hatch Act provisions might not apply and the person could also run for office, but such an advisory board position is hardly an inducement to give up a decent chance of becoming a Senator.

[...]

The strategy is clear. White House political advisors see two qualified Democrats going at each other in a Senate primary, one an incumbent and the other not. The second candidate is approached about the possibility of a job in the Administration, or if he has already approached the Administration about a job his application is taken seriously. If a full time Administration job is accepted the candidate who accepts it will have to drop out of the race because of the Hatch Act. The White House will get what the Democratic party leadership wants by operation of law.

I don't like this, and voters in the effected states certainly shouldn't like it. Once a candidate has declared an intention to run for federal office, the White House should back off and let the voters decide. Then the White House can give the loser a job if it is warranted. There are plenty of other people to fill Administration posts in the meantime.

Not liking it and saying it is illegal are two different things. Once again, for reasons already mentioned I don't see illegality unless of course someone lies about it. If Congress wants to make this practice illegal, perhaps Congress should enact a law saying that no person who has filed papers to run in a federal election may be contacted by anyone in the Executive Branch about possible employment until the election is over.