White House Instructs Officials to Avoid Appearance of Politics

The White House announced today that it had issued guidelines instructing administration officials to ensure that their dealings with the public do not appear to be influenced by improper political considerations.

“Strict adherence to the rules is not enough,” says a memorandum to White House staff members and federal agency and department heads. “We need to avoid even the appearance of politicization in order to ensure people’s faith in the actions of the administration.”

The move follows controversy over a conference call organized in August by a National Endowment for the Arts official to promote the administration’s “United We Serve” volunteer program. Some artists said the official made comments that appeared to be pushing the White House’s political agenda.

White House officials have said the call did not violate any laws and was organized with good intentions but that it raised questions of impropriety that they wanted to respond to by issuing the guidelines.

The memo instructs officials to:

• Continue to ensure decisions are based on merit. “For those agencies that engage in grant making, it is the policy of this administration that those funding decisions be free of political interference or even the appearance thereof.”

• Be evenhanded in dealing with citizens and nongovernmental organizations. “Government officials should not give preference to one person or organization over another based on improper political considerations.”

• Engage only in authorized activities. Agencies should abide by all legal restrictions, such as the Hatch Act’s limitations on use of government resources for partisan political activities.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, said in a blog post that White House officials have also started training sessions for federal employees.

Rocco Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, issued a statement this week saying that the purpose of the contested call was to provide artists with information about how the Corporation for National and Community Service can help groups interested in sponsoring volunteer projects. However, he said, some of the comments made by the official, Yosi Sergant, were “not appropriate and did not reflect the position of the NEA.” He said Mr. Sergant had been removed from his former position as communications director.