494
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
hazards to fair and effective government." 413 U. S., at 565.
The Court emphasized that "it is not only important that the Government and its employees in fact avoid practicing political justice, but it is also critical that they appear to the public to be avoiding it, if confidence in the system of representative Government is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent." Ibid. Thus, the Hatch Act served as a safeguard to both the actual and perceived impartiality and effectiveness of the Federal Government. See Mitchell, supra, at 95-96; Letter Carriers, supra, at 564-567.
Applying these standards to the honoraria ban, I cannot say that the balance that Congress has struck between its interests and the interests of its employees to receive compensation for their First Amendment expression is unreasonable. Cf. Letter Carriers, supra, at 564; Pickering, 391 U. S., at 568.
The Court largely ignores the Government's foremost interest—prevention of impropriety and the appearance of impropriety—by focusing solely on the burdens of the statute as applied to several carefully selected Executive Branch employees whose situations present the application of the statute where the Government's interests are at their lowest ebb: a mail handler employed by the Postal Service who lectured on the Quaker religion; an aerospace engineer who lectured on black history; a microbiologist who reviewed dance performances; and a tax examiner who wrote articles about the environment. Ante, at 461-462. Undoubtedly these are members of the class, but they by no means represent the breadth of the class which includes all " 'employee[s]' . . . below grade GS-16, who—but for 5 U. S. C. app. 501(b)— would receive 'honoraria', as defined in 5 U. S. C. app. 505(3)." App. 124-125. Nothing in the class certification limits the receipt of honoraria to the activities engaged in by the several employees discussed by the Court. See, e. g.,
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