FDR signs the Hatch Act limiting federal employee political activity

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act, formally titled "An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities," barring most executive-branch civil servants from partisan campaign work. Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico sponsored the bill after Senate investigations found WPA officials using relief funds to boost New Deal Democrats in the 1938 primaries. The act exempted the president and vice president and was extended to federally funded state employees in 1940.