Bush’s house homophobe (continued)

Compare that with the handling of allegations from last August, when Senator John Kerry appeared at the Kennedy Space Center, a National Air and Space Administration facility. (The appearance resulted in a photo of Kerry in a light-blue protective suit, which the Republican National Committee mocked.) Within two days of receiving allegations that Kerry’s appearance may have violated the Hatch Act, Bloch assigned the case to the investigative staff, directing them to conduct an immediate on-site investigation.

This apparently partisan application of the OSC’s resources was high profile enough to draw criticism from Conyers and others in Washington. But Bloch appears to be doing the same with rank-and-file federal employees. He has sought sanctions against eight people for alleged Hatch Act violations since taking office. Two, involving a Social Security Administration employee who e-mailed a pro-Kerry message and another who responded with a pro-Bush e-mail, were just rejected by an administrative judge. Of the other six, three are against Democrats, two are against Green Party members, and one is against an independent.

ALL THESE allegations are serious, but there is a more fundamental problem with the OSC under Scott Bloch: it is not doing its job.

Bloch entered office pledging to reduce the backlog of cases, which stood at about 1200 held-over cases each year. (About half of those are whistleblower disclosures, and half are complaints about reprisals or discrimination.) He claims to have done so, although his office has refused all requests for a specific accounting.

But by all appearances, he has not cut the backlog by more efficiently processing complaints, pursuing the ones with merit, and dismissing the others. He seems instead simply to have closed hundreds of cases without any inquiry at all.

It could hardly be otherwise; the office was understaffed when he arrived, with at least 10 open positions out of about 120. Since then, roughly 20 percent of the staff has been fired or quit. Only a few have been hired, outside of Bloch’s political staff, and they are neither experienced nor qualified for the work.

"You’ve got empty office after empty office," one source says. The mediation office, a particularly successful program for resolving disputes, has gone unstaffed. The headquarters investigative team is roughly half what it was.

Nevertheless, despite the staffing shortage and case backlog, Bloch has found time to pursue, of all things, allegations that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are conspiring to hide the true link between childhood vaccines and autism. "Notwithstanding a new Institute of Medicine study released yesterday that concludes there is no link," reads an OSC press release from May 2004, and even though "the OSC does not have jurisdiction," Bloch was gathering allegations from private citizens and referring them for congressional oversight.

Observers inside the office were baffled by the project. "We all looked at each other and said, ‘What on earth is he doing that for?’" says one OSC employee.

Meanwhile, serious allegations are going uninvestigated. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has obtained a detailed complaint against Arturo Q. Duran, commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission in El Paso, Texas, and a Bush appointee. Duran allegedly hired friends without performing required background checks; spent government money on himself; and retaliated against several employees who sent a letter to a local publication about him. The OSC took one week to close the case, without any inquiry. In another case, attorney Bryan Schwartz represented several Smithsonian employees who alleged sexual harassment, theft of government supplies, illegal drug use, inappropriate use of government equipment and manpower, unfair hiring practices, possession of personal firearms, and retaliation for whistle-blowing; that case was also summarily closed. Other cases getting the brush-off involve federal employees blowing the whistle on security lapses and fraud.

Bloch and others at OSC have denied that the office is closing meritorious cases just to reduce the backlog. (Neither Bloch or Renne would speak with the Phoenix.) But they also acknowledge that anywhere from 600 to 1000 whistleblower cases have recently been closed without investigation, compared with fewer than 700 in the previous two years combined. And insiders report that the emphasis has been on closing cases, not on pursuing wrongdoers. "When you keep emphasizing closing cases, you start to wonder whether he wants those cases investigated," says one.

"In the 16 or so months he’s been there, we haven’t seen one whistleblower get helped," says Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Watchdog groups claim that those making complaints are not even receiving a phone call before their cases close. One group, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), put out a call last week for anyone who has filed a whistleblower’s complaint with OSC to tell them what has happened.

With GAP compiling these stories, and Capitol Hill holding hearings, the White House might be forced to rein in Bloch, or even fire him. If not, he’s still got almost four years left in his five-year term to keep Republican law-breakers safe from their complaining employees.

David S. Bernstein can be reached at dbernstein[a]phx.com