United States Office of Special Counsel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other United States offices of special counsel, see U.S. Office of Special Counsel

The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from three federal statutes, the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act and the Hatch Act. Its primary mission is to protect federal employees and others from "prohibited personnel practices." It has around 100 staff.^[1] The agency attracted public attention in April 2007 when it began an investigation of alleged White House political pressure on Federal civil servants. Senior Bush political adviser Karl Rove was reported to be a subject of the investigation.^[2]

1 Prohibited personnel practices
2 Scott J. Bloch
3 Controversy
4 Sources and notes

[edit] Prohibited personnel practices

Its primary mission is to protect federal employees and others from "prohibited personnel practices". Those practices, defined by law at § 2302(b) of Title 5 of the United States Code (U.S.C.), generally stated, provide that a federal employee authorized to take, direct others to take, recommend or approve any personnel action may not:

discriminate against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation;
solicit or consider employment recommendations based on factors other than personal knowledge or records of job-related abilities or characteristics;
coerce the political activity of any person;
deceive or willfully obstruct anyone from competing for employment;
influence anyone to withdraw from competition for any position so as to improve or injure the employment prospects of any other person;
give an unauthorized preference or advantage to anyone so as to improve or injure the employment prospects of any particular employee or applicant;
engage in nepotism (i.e., hire, promote, or advocate the hiring or promotion of relatives);
engage in reprisal for whistleblowing—i.e., take, fail to take, or threaten to take or fail to take a personnel action with respect to any employee or applicant because of any disclosure of information by the employee or applicant that he or she reasonably believes evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety (if such disclosure is not barred by law and such information is not specifically required by Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or the conduct of foreign affairs—if so restricted by law or Executive Order, the disclosure is only protected if made to the Special Counsel, the Inspector General, or comparable agency official);
take, fail to take, or threaten to take or fail to take a personnel action against an employee or applicant for exercising an appeal, complaint, or grievance right; testifying for or assisting another in exercising such a right; cooperating with or disclosing information to the Special Counsel or to an Inspector General; or refusing to obey an order that would require the individual to violate a law;
discriminate based on personal conduct which is not adverse to the on-the-job performance of an employee, applicant, or others; or
take or fail to take, recommend, or approve a personnel action if taking or failing to take such an action would violate a veterans’ preference requirement; and
take or fail to take a personnel action, if taking or failing to take action would violate any law, rule or regulation implementing or directly concerning merit system principles at 5 U.S.C. § 2301.^[3]

[edit] Scott J. Bloch

On June 26, 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Scott J. Bloch for the position of Special Counsel at the Office of Special Counsel; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 9, 2003. On January 5, 2004, he was sworn in to serve a five-year term.^[4] Bloch has been a lightning rod for controversy since he took the position, his first major actions as head of the office were to choose as deputy a Catholic lawyer who had publicly taken a position against the "homosexual agenda," rather than a non-Catholic lawyer who had not, and to hire young lawyers from Ave Maria School of Law, the conservative Catholic school founded by Domino's Pizza billionaire Tom Monaghan rather than from more progressive law schools.^[5]

On May 6, 2008 news agencies report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was serving warrants on Special Counsel offices in Washington D.C. and in Texas, seized computers and searched Bloch's home. It was alleged that when Bloch's refusal to follow up on cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation was leaked to the press, he retaliated against career employees by creating a field office in Detroit. It was further alleged that he obstructed the investigation by removing material from his computer.^[6]

[edit] Controversy

The OSC has been criticized for (1) very rarely recognizing legitimate whistleblowers, typically only when the whistleblower has already prevailed elsewhere, (2) taking too long to investigate meritorious cases, (3) using a conservative litmus test in hiring, (4) discouraging federal whistleblowers from using their legal protections, and (5) generally siding with the federal administration instead of with the whistleblowers it is supposed to protect. ^[7]^[8]

On March 22, 2007, U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (Democrat, Hawaii), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, held a hearing on "Safeguarding the Merit System Principles." In his opening statement, Sen. Akaka stated, "organizations that help whistleblowers claim that OSC has gone from being their first option for relief to their last choice since OSC no longer works with agencies to achieve informal relief and the percentage of corrective actions and stays has been cut in half since 2002." ^[9]