Cite as: 513 U. S. 454 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
chanic at the mint named Poole who had no policymaking authority. We explained that "[t]here are hundreds of thousands of United States employees with positions no more influential upon policy determination than that of Mr. Poole. Evidently what Congress feared was the cumulative effect on employee morale of political activity by all employees who could be induced to participate actively." 330 U. S., at 101. In Civil Service Comm'n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548 (1973), we noted that enactment of the Hatch Act in 1939 reflected "the conviction that the rapidly expanding Government work force should not be employed to build a powerful, invincible, and perhaps corrupt political machine." Id., at 565. An equally important concern was
"to further serve the goal that employment and advancement in the Government service not depend on political performance, and at the same time to make sure that Government employees would be free from pressure and from express or tacit invitation to vote in a certain way or perform political chores in order to curry favor with their superiors rather than to act out their own beliefs." Id., at 566.
Thus, the Hatch Act aimed to protect employees' rights, notably their right to free expression, rather than to restrict those rights.17 Like the Hatch Act, the honoraria ban affects hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Unlike partisan political activity, however, honoraria hardly appear to threaten employees' morale or liberty. Moreover, Congress effectively designed the Hatch Act to combat demonstrated ill effects of Government employees' partisan political activities. In contrast, the Government has failed to show how it serves the interests it asserts by applying the honoraria ban to respondents.
17 Cf. Arnett, 416 U. S., at 159 (Lloyd-La Follette Act's purpose was "to give myriad different federal employees performing widely disparate tasks a common standard of job protection").
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