GIVE CONTRACTORS THE HATCH, NOT THE AXE: EXTENDING POLITICAL ACTIVITY SPEECH RIGHTS TO PERSONAL SERVICE CONTRACTORS UNDER THE HATCH ACT

[...]Part V argues that Congress should amend the Hatch Act language to cover personal service contractors in both the protections and prohibitions regarding political activity, including activity based on social media. "142 Personal service contractors were appealing because they allowed agencies to meet their hiring demands quickly, rather than be derailed by the languid process of the federal government.143 Government agencies also incorrectly believed that personal service contractors would amount to less costly hires.144 Yet the federal government's spending actually increased as a result of the personal service contractors' prominent role in the federal workforce.145 Despite the FAR's facial rejection of the use of personal service contractors, agencies have found ways to circumvent this provision. Because agencies relied on personal service contractors to carry out normal business operations, statutory and regulatory authorizations were pushed through permitting the agencies to temporarily hire workers, thus overriding the FAR.146 Should agencies find themselves unable to obtain necessary authorization, they plainly ignore the FAR's prohibition against hiring personal service contractors.147 B. The Federal Government Spends Significantly to Employ Personal Service Contractors Federal agencies have spent significant money on awarding personal service contracts for at least a decade.148 In 2007, the Army Contracting Agency's Contracting Center of Excellence ("CCE") found that contract specialists149 made up twenty-four to thirty percent of the CCE workforce in the four years since the agency started onboarding them.150 The CCE found that contract specialists operating at the GS-12 CCE level were paid an hourly rate of roughly seventeen percent more than their government employee counterparts. 151 That figure increased to twenty-seven percent for GS-13 specialists.152 A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that between 2011 and 2015, the government allocated $1.5 billion on personal service contracting.153 The GAO estimated that four federal agencies accounted for sixty percent of personal service contract spending in 2014: the Air Force, the Navy, the Army, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).154 While these numbers provide a foundation for conceptualizing the extent to which personal service contracts are employed in our government, the report acknowledges the inconsistencies in tracking personal service c