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During the October 2025 federal government shutdown, Americans visiting official government websites for essential information saw something unusual.
Instead of neutral notices about service disruptions, the homepages of federal agencies, from the Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, displayed prominent banners with a clear message. The shutdown was the fault of the Democratic Party.
This coordinated campaign extended to altering the out-of-office emails of furloughed civil servants. The practice marked a significant departure from how past administrations communicated during funding lapses.
The Messaging Campaign
The campaign during the October 2025 shutdown was widespread and coordinated across the executive branch. At least eight federal agencies participated, using official digital platforms to place blame for the funding lapse on the administration’s political opponents.
The language ranged from direct accusations to highly charged ideological rhetoric, indicating a strategy that was both consistent in theme and tailored in intensity.
Website Banners
The most visible component was the placement of banners on the homepages of major federal websites. These messages replaced or overshadowed standard information about government services.
The rhetoric varied by agency. Some, like the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control, used a relatively straightforward message blaming “Democrats.” Others employed more inflammatory language.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development referred to the “Radical Left,” a term designed to energize a specific political constituency rather than simply assign legislative responsibility.
The Department of Agriculture went further, incorporating divisive social issues into its shutdown notice by falsely claiming Democrats were holding out for “healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures.”
This variation suggests a two-tiered strategy: a baseline message blaming Democrats was likely mandated across the executive branch, while certain agencies were permitted to use more provocative rhetoric. This distinction carries legal weight, as the highly specific and derogatory language makes a defense of “political speech” more difficult.
| Federal Agency | Quoted Message | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Housing and Urban Development | “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.” | WUSA9 |
| Department of Justice | “Democrats have shut down the government. Department of Justice websites are not currently regularly updated.” | WUSA9 |
| Department of Agriculture | “Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse.” | WUSA9 |
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | “Mission-critical activities of CDC will continue during the Democrat-led government shutdown.” | Common Cause |
| Department of the Treasury | “The radical left has chosen to shut down the United States government in the name of reckless spending and obstructionism.” | The Guardian |
| White House Office of Management and Budget | A running clock counting the shutdown’s duration with the message: “Democrats Have Shut Down the Government.” | KJZZ |
Altered Employee Communications
Beyond public-facing websites, the administration directed its partisan messaging inward. At agencies including the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Small Business Administration, career civil servants who had set neutral, pre-approved out-of-office email replies before being furloughed discovered their messages had been changed without their knowledge or consent.
A Department of Education employee, speaking anonymously, confirmed the practice: “This message is uniform and provided to us by the Department… However, the Department has gone in without our knowledge or approval and changed the message.”
The new, mandated messages blamed “Democrat Senators” for blocking a funding bill, effectively turning the professional accounts of non-political employees into instruments of a partisan campaign.
This action shifted the legal and ethical dimensions. The issue was no longer just about the government’s own speech—it was about the government compelling the speech of its civil servants, forcing them to become unwilling participants in a political dispute.
The Hatch Act Challenge
The primary legal challenge to the administration’s messaging campaign centers on the Hatch Act of 1939, a cornerstone of American civil service law designed to maintain a politically neutral federal workforce.
What the Law Says
Codified in Title 5 of the U.S. Code, the Hatch Act’s purpose is threefold: to ensure federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure federal employees are advanced based on merit, not political affiliation.
The law achieves this by placing strict limits on the partisan political activities of most executive branch employees.
The Act’s key prohibitions relevant to the shutdown messaging include:
No Use of Official Authority
A federal employee may not use their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” This includes using an official title or position to endorse or attack a candidate or party.
No Partisan Activity at Work
Employees are forbidden from engaging in “partisan political activity” while on duty, in a federal building, or using any government property, which explicitly includes government websites and email systems.
“Partisan political activity” is defined as any activity “directed toward the success or failure of a partisan candidate, political party, or partisan political group.”
The Violation Argument
Critics argue the shutdown messaging represents a clear violation of these prohibitions. Watchdog organizations like Common Cause, Public Citizen, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have filed dozens of formal complaints with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the independent agency responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act.
The central argument is straightforward: placing banners on official “.gov” websites that explicitly attack the “Democratic Party,” “Senate Democrats,” or the “Radical Left” constitutes use of government property for activity directed at the failure of a political party.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law expert, has described the act as turning taxpayer-funded service agencies into “MAGA propaganda organs” in a “naked violation of the Hatch Act.”
Coerced Speech
The alteration of employee out-of-office emails raises even more profound legal issues. This action goes beyond misuse of government property and enters the realm of coerced speech.
Rep. Raskin has termed it “a form of identity theft” that “fraudulently depicts federal workers as personally disseminating a political message that they have never approved, do not want to be associated with, and may be illegal.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of its members, arguing the administration “directly and deliberately violated the First Amendment rights of furloughed workers.”
This transforms the legal analysis from a question of statutory compliance with the Hatch Act to a constitutional question about compelling individual speech.
The Enforcement Problem
The situation exposed a critical vulnerability in government ethics enforcement. The very act being politicized—the government shutdown—simultaneously disabled the primary legal mechanisms for policing that politicization.
The OSC’s Hatch Act unit was furloughed. Emails sent to the unit received an automatic reply stating they were “out of the office due to a lapse in appropriations.” The Merit Systems Protection Board, the quasi-judicial body that adjudicates OSC cases and imposes penalties, was also completely closed.
This created an enforcement paradox: the administration’s actions created a temporary zone of impunity, allowing the partisan messages to remain online throughout the shutdown without any immediate legal check.
The Appropriations Law Challenge
A second legal challenge stems from Congress’s constitutional authority: the power of the purse. For over 50 years, Congress has attached riders to federal funding bills to prevent the executive branch from using taxpayer money for domestic propaganda.
The Publicity or Propaganda Prohibition
Since the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation Act of 1952, Congress has included a provision in annual appropriations bills stating: “No part of any appropriation … shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.”
The statute doesn’t define “publicity or propaganda.” That task falls to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Over decades, the GAO has developed a doctrine that separates prohibited propaganda into three categories:
- Self-Aggrandizement. Also known as “puffery,” this refers to agency communications that are purely self-congratulatory and overstate the agency’s importance or achievements.
- Purely Partisan Purposes. This includes any materials or communications solely dedicated to promoting the electoral success or failure of a political party or candidate.
- Covert Propaganda. This involves materials prepared by a government agency but disseminated through a non-governmental outlet without disclosing the government’s role as the source.
Applying the Law
The shutdown messaging appears to fall squarely into the second category: “purely partisan purposes.” The website banners and altered emails were not designed to inform the public about agency services or defend a specific government policy in a neutral manner. Their exclusive purpose was to attack the Democratic Party during a legislative negotiation.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has argued the messages served “no legitimate official purpose” and constituted an “illegal use of taxpayer dollars for partisan and propaganda purposes.”
A group of 24 U.S. Senators, led by Sen. Mark Warner, sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget demanding immediate removal of the messages, citing them as “blatant violation” of the appropriations rider.
The Democracy Defenders Fund has filed a letter with the GAO, calling for an investigation into whether the agencies violated the appropriations ban as well as the Anti-Deficiency Act, which governs the use of federal funds.
Constitutional Confrontation
The administration’s actions created a direct constitutional confrontation. Congress, through the anti-propaganda rider, has repeatedly expressed its intent to forbid the executive branch from using taxpayer funds for partisan messaging.
By ordering this campaign, the executive branch used funds appropriated by Congress for a purpose Congress had explicitly prohibited. This is a challenge to the separation of powers. The executive branch weaponized funds provided by Congress to launch a political attack back on the legislative branch during a budgetary dispute.
The Administration’s Potential Defense
The primary defense rests on the government speech doctrine, a principle rooted in the First Amendment that gives the government latitude in expressing its own views.
Government Speech Doctrine
The government speech doctrine holds that while the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause limits the government’s ability to regulate private speech, it doesn’t restrict the government when it’s speaking for itself. The government is not required to be viewpoint-neutral when it’s the speaker.
Under this doctrine, the administration would argue that the website banners were a form of government speech. As head of the executive branch, the president has the right to explain the administration’s position on the shutdown and identify who he believes is responsible.
Political vs. Partisan Speech
The crux of this defense lies in a subtle but critical legal distinction historically recognized by the OSC: the difference between permissible “political speech” and prohibited “partisan speech.”
Political Speech (Permissible)
This generally refers to communications about government policy or pending legislation, even if the discussion mentions a political party. A key precedent is a 2024 OSC determination regarding a letter from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The letter blamed “Republican elected officials” for lawsuits that blocked a student debt relief plan. The OSC concluded this didn’t violate the Hatch Act because the letter’s intent was to explain a government policy outcome to a targeted audience, not to interfere with an election.
Partisan Speech (Prohibited)
This refers to activity explicitly aimed at the success or failure of a political party or candidate, particularly in an electoral context.
The administration’s defense would be to classify the shutdown messaging as “political speech.” They would argue the banners were simply explaining the administration’s policy position on the budget and the factual reason for the funding lapse—the lack of Democratic votes in the Senate.
Challenges to This Defense
This defense faces significant challenges. Legal experts have pointed out that the 2025 shutdown messaging differs substantially from the Cardona precedent in both scope and tone.
The student loan letters were targeted communications to a specific group affected by a policy, whereas the shutdown banners were a “national broadcast on anyone who goes to these government websites.”
More importantly, the use of inflammatory, ideological language like “Radical Left” and the inclusion of attacks on marginalized groups moves far beyond neutral policy explanation. Such rhetoric is difficult to separate from a partisan campaign designed to energize a political base and demonize an opposing party.
The administration’s actions can be seen as a strategic attempt to exploit the ambiguity of the “political vs. partisan” line. By pushing the boundaries of acceptable government communication, the administration is effectively testing legal limits and forcing oversight bodies and courts to either draw a firmer line or accept a new, more aggressive standard for official government speech.
Historical Precedent
To fully appreciate the significance of the 2025 messaging campaign, it’s essential to compare it with the communication strategies of previous administrations during government shutdowns. This comparison reveals that the Trump administration’s actions were not an evolution of past practices but a fundamental break from established norms.
The 2013 Shutdown Under Obama
During the 16-day government shutdown in October 2013, the Obama administration’s approach to official communications was markedly different. Federal agency websites displayed neutral, factual, and informational messages.
The Department of the Interior’s website simply stated: “Due to the current lapse of federal appropriations, this website may not be up to date; transactions submitted via this website might not be processed… and we may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.” There was no mention of political parties or blame assigned to these public-facing service platforms.
President Obama did assign blame for the shutdown, but through distinctly political channels. He sent a letter to all federal employees stating the shutdown “should not have happened” and that the “House of Representatives can end it as soon as it follows the Senate’s lead… without trying to attach highly controversial and partisan measures in the process.”
While this message clearly blamed the Republican-controlled House, its delivery was crucial: it was an internal communication to the federal workforce, not a public-facing banner on a service website.
The 1995-1996 Shutdowns Under Clinton
The government shutdowns of 1995-1996 occurred during the infancy of the public internet. The first White House website had only launched in 1994, and its archived version from November 1995 shows no evidence of partisan shutdown messaging.
Agency websites that were affected simply posted notices that they were closed or that services were unavailable.
President Clinton publicly blamed his political opponents—the “Republican Congress” led by Speaker Newt Gingrich—for the shutdown. In public remarks on November 14, 1995, Clinton stated he had vetoed their spending bill because it would force deep cuts in Medicare, education, and the environment.
However, this political battle was waged through traditional channels like press conferences and public speeches, not by weaponizing the digital infrastructure of the federal government.
No Bush Shutdowns
There were no government shutdowns during the presidency of George W. Bush, so there’s no direct precedent for his administration’s shutdown communications.
However, the era was marked by a different ethics controversy involving digital communications: the discovery that White House officials were using private email accounts on a Republican National Committee server for official business. This was done, in part, to avoid creating records subject to the Presidential Records Act and potentially to circumvent the Hatch Act’s prohibitions on political activity using government resources.
Breaking the Norm
This historical review demonstrates a consistent norm across both Democratic and Republican administrations: a clear separation was maintained between political messaging and the official machinery of government services.
Blame was assigned through political channels—speeches, press conferences, letters—while official government websites remained neutral and informational.
The Trump administration’s 2025 strategy has shattered this norm. It merged the partisan message directly with the government’s service delivery platforms, leveraging the perceived authority and neutrality of “.gov” websites to launch a political attack.
This represents a qualitative shift in the use of government power, setting a precedent that could see every government website transformed into a campaign platform during future political crises.
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