Hatch Act: Applicable or Antiquated

http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939

As a federal employee I am banned from running for a partisan political office (Representative, Senator, etc) because of a piece of legislation called the Hatch Act. Now if I understand correctly the Hatch Act was passed to try and reduce “government corruption” however I feel that it is not only unconstitutional but also antiquated.

In 1947 and 1974 the Act was challenged in the Supreme Court on the basis that it violated the First Amendment. The Court disagreed and upheld the Act. That being said, I still believe that it is unconstitutional. The mistake the other two challenges made was that they challenged the Act based on free speech, but what they should have challenged it on is far earlier in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 2 states the exact requirements that MUST be met in order for a person to be eligible to be elected as a member of the House of Representatives; Article 1, Section 3, Paragraph 3 states the exact requirements to be a member of the U.S. Senate; and Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 5 does the same for the President. Since these requirements are spelled out in the Constitution, any change or addition to them MUST be in the form of a Constitutional Amendment and unless the Hatch Act is passed as an amendment it will continue to be unconstitutional.

I also mentioned the Act being antiquated. It was created as a way to reduce government corruption and the “buying” of votes but politicians, interest groups, etc have found ways around it. A comparison of a politician’s voting record and his/her campaign finance report will prove that votes are in effect being bought. Special interests, corporations, etc would not donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to a politician’s campaign unless it got results. It is no coincidence that the NRA pumps tons of money into Republican, pro-gun, campaigns. In this type of environment, the only thing the Hatch Act manages to prevent is a large portion of U.S. citizens from running for office.