413 U.S. 548 (1973)

UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION ET AL.
v.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS, AFL-CIO, ET AL.

No. 72-634.

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued March 26, 1973. Decided June 25, 1973. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

*549 Solicitor General Griswold argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Wood, Andrew L. Frey, Robert E. Kopp, and Anthony L. Mondello.

Thomas C. Matthews, Jr., argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Stephen M. Truitt, Melvin L. Wulf, Ralph J. Temple, and Philip Elman.^[*]

*550 MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

On December 11, 1972, we noted probable jurisdiction of this appeal, 409 U. S. 1058, based on a jurisdictional statement presenting the single question whether the prohibition in § 9 (a) of the Hatch Act, now codified in 5 U. S. C. § 7324 (a) (2), against federal employees taking "an active part in political management or in political campaigns," is unconstitutional on its face. Section 7324 (a) provides:

"An employee in an Executive agency or an individual employed by the government of the District of Columbia may not—

"(1) use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election; or

"(2) take an active part in political management or in political campaigns.

"For the purpose of this subsection, the phrase `an active part in political management or in political campaigns' means those acts of political management or political campaigning which were prohibited on the part of employees in the competitive service before July 19, 1940, by determinations of the Civil Service Commission under the rules prescribed by the President."^[1]*551 A divided three-judge court sitting in the District of Columbia had held the section unconstitutional. 346 F. Supp. 578 (1972). We reverse the judgment of the District Court.

I

The case began when the National Association of Letter Carriers, six individual federal employees and certain local Democratic and Republican political committees filed a complaint, asserting on behalf of themselves and all federal employees that 5 U. S. C. § 7324 (a) (2) was unconstitutional on its face and seeking an injunction against its enforcement.^[2]

Each of the plaintiffs alleged that the Civil Service Commission was enforcing, or threatening to enforce, the Hatch Act's prohibition against active participation in political management or political campaigns with respect to certain defined activity in which that plaintiff desired to engage.^[3] The Union, for example, stated *552 among other things that its members desired to campaign for candidates for public office. The Democratic and Republican Committees complained of not being able *553 to get federal employees to run for state and local offices. Plaintiff Hummel stated that he was aware of the provision of the Hatch Act and that the activities he desired to engage in would violate that Act as, for example, his participating as a delegate in a party convention or holding office in a political club.

A three-judge court was convened, and the case was tried on both stipulated evidence and oral testimony. The District Court then ruled that § 7324 (a) (2) was unconstitutional on its face and enjoined its enforcement. The court recognized the "well-established governmental interest in restricting political activities by federal employees which [had been] asserted long before enactment of the Hatch Act," 346 F. Supp., at 579, as well as the fact that the "appropriateness of this governmental objective was recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States when it endorsed the objectives of the Hatch Act. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 . . . (1947) . . . ." Id., at 580. The District Court ruled, however, that United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1947), left open the constitutionality of the statutory definition of "political activity," 346 F. Supp., at 580, and proceeded to hold that definition to be both vague and overbroad, and therefore unconstitutional and unenforceable against the plaintiffs in any respect. The District Court also added, id., at 585, that even if the Supreme Court in Mitchell could be said to have upheld the definitional section in its entirety, later decisions had so eroded the holding *554 that it could no longer be considered binding on the District Court.

II

As the District Court recognized, the constitutionality of the Hatch Act's ban on taking an active part in political management or political campaigns has been here before. This very prohibition was attacked in the Mitchell case by a labor union and various federal employees as being violative of the First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments and as contrary to the Fifth Amendment by being vague and indefinite, arbitrarily discriminatory, and a deprivation of liberty. The Court there first determined that with respect to all but one of the plaintiffs there was no case or controversy present within the meaning of Art. III because the Court could only speculate as to the type of political activity the appellants there desired to engage in or as to the contents of their proposed public statements or the circumstances of their publication. As to the plaintiff Poole, however, the Court noted that "[h]e was a ward executive committeeman of a political party and was politically active on election day as a worker at the polls and a paymaster for the services of other party workers." 330 U. S., at 94. Plainly, the Court thought, these activities fell within the prohibition of § 9 (a) of the Hatch Act against taking an active part in political management or political campaigning; and "[t]hey [were] also covered by the prior determinations of the [Civil Service] Commission," id., at 103 (footnote omitted), as incorporated by § 15 of the Hatch Act,^[4] the Court relying on a *555 Civil Service Commission publication, Political Activity and Political Assessments, Form 1236, Sept. 1939, for the latter conclusion. Id., at 103 n. 38. Poole's complaint thus presented a case or controversy for decision, the question being solely whether the Hatch Act "without violating the Constitution, [could make this conduct] the basis for disciplinary action." Id., at 94. The Court held that it could. "[T]he practice of excluding classified employees from party offices and personal political activity at the polls ha[d] been in effect for several decades," id., at 96; and the Court, over a single dissent, in Ex parte Curtis, 106 U. S. 371 (1882), had previously upheld the longstanding prohibition forbidding federal employees "from giving or receiving money for political purposes from or to other employees of the government," 330 U. S., at 96. "The conviction that an actively partisan governmental personnel threatens good administration has deepened since . . . Curtis," id., at 97-98, Congress having recognized the "danger to the service in that political rather than official effort may earn advancement and to the public in that governmental favor may be channeled through political connections." Id., at 98 (footnote omitted).

The Government, the Court thought, was empowered to prevent federal employees from contributing energy as well as from collecting money for partisan political ends: "Congress and the President are responsible for an efficient public service. If, in their judgment, efficiency may be best obtained by prohibiting active participation by classified employees in politics as party officers or workers, we see no constitutional objection." Id., at 99 (footnote omitted). Another Congress might determine otherwise, but "[t]he teaching of experience . . . evidently *556 led Congress to enact the Hatch Act," id., at 99, which the Court refused to invalidate and which it viewed as leaving "untouched full participation by employees in political decisions at the ballot box and forbids only the partisan activity of federal personnel deemed offensive to efficiency." Ibid. The Act did not interfere with a "wide range of public activities." Id., at 100. It was "only partisan political activity that is interdicted. . . . [Only] active participation in political management and political campaigns [is proscribed]. Expressions, public or private, on public affairs, personalities and matters of public interest, not an objective of party action, are unrestricted by law so long as the government employee does not direct his activities toward party success." Ibid. The Court concluded that what Mr. Poole had done was within the power of Congress and the Executive to prevent.

We unhesitatingly reaffirm the Mitchell holding that Congress had, and has, the power to prevent Mr. Poole and others like him from holding a party office, working at the polls, and acting as party paymaster for other party workers. An Act of Congress going no farther would in our view unquestionably be valid. So would it be if, in plain and understandable language, the statute forbade activities such as organizing a political party or club; actively participating in fund-raising activities for a partisan candidate or political party; becoming a partisan candidate for, or campaigning for, an elective public office; actively managing the campaign of a partisan candidate for public office; initiating or circulating a partisan nominating petition or soliciting votes for a partisan candidate for public office; or serving as a delegate, alternate or proxy to a political party convention. Our judgment is that neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of the Constitution invalidates a law barring this kind of partisan political conduct by federal employees.

*557 A

Such decision on our part would no more than confirm the judgment of history, a judgment made by this country over the last century that it is in the best interest of the country, indeed essential, that federal service should depend upon meritorious performance rather than political service, and that the political influence of federal employees on others and on the electoral process should be limited. That this judgment eventuated is indisputable, and the major steps in reaching it may be simply and briefly set down.

Early in our history, Thomas Jefferson was disturbed by the political activities of some of those in the Executive Branch of the Government. See 10 J. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents 98 (1899). The heads of the executive departments, in response to his directive, issued an order stating in part that "[t]he right of any officer to give his vote at elections as a qualified citizen is not meant to be restrained, nor, however given, shall it have any effect to his prejudice; but it is expected that he will not attempt to influence the votes of others nor take any part in the business of electioneering, that being deemed inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution and his duties to it." Id., at 98-99.^[5]

There were other voices raised in the 19th century against the mixing of partisan politics and routine federal service. But until after the Civil War, the spoils system under which federal employees came and went, depending upon party service and changing administrations, rather than meritorious performance, was much the vogue and the prevalent basis for governmental employment *558 and advancement. 1 Report of Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel, Findings and Recommendations 7-8 (1968). That system did not survive. Congress authorized the President to prescribe regulations for the creation of a civil service of federal employees in 1871, 16 Stat. 514; but it was the Civil Service Act of 1883, c. 27, 22 Stat. 403, known as the Pendleton Act, H. Kaplan, The Law of Civil Service 9-10 (1958), that declared that "no person in the public service is for that reason under any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service" and that "no person in said service has any right to use his official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body." 22 Stat. 404. That Act authorized the President to promulgate rules to carry the Act into effect and created the Civil Service Commission as the agency or administrator of the Act under the rules of the President.

The original Civil Service rules were promulgated on May 7, 1883, by President Arthur. Civil Service Rule I repeated the language of the Act that no one in the executive service should use his official authority or influence to coerce any other person or to interfere with an election, but went no further in restricting the political activities of federal employees. 8 J. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents 161 (1899). Problems with political activity continued to arise, Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission 7-9 (1908),^[6] and one form of remedial action was taken in 1907 when, in accordance with Executive Order 642 issued by President Theodore Roosevelt, 1 Report of Commission *559 on Political Activity, supra, at 9, § 1 of Rule I was amended to read as follows:

"No person in the Executive civil service shall use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or affecting the result thereof. Persons who, by the provisions of these rules are in the competitive classified service, while retaining the right to vote as they please and to express privately their opinions on all political subjects, shall take no active part in political management or in political campaigns." Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission, supra, at 104 (emphasis added).

It was under this rule that the Commission thereafter exercised the authority it had to investigate, adjudicate, and recommend sanctions for federal employees thought to have violated the rule. See Howard, Federal Restrictions on the Political Activity of Government Employees, 35 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 470, 475 (1941). In the course of these adjudications, the Commission identified and developed a body of law with respect to the conduct of federal employees that was forbidden by the prohibition against taking an active part in political management or political campaigning. Adjudications under Civil Service Rule I spelled out the scope and meaning of the rule in the mode of the common law, 86 Cong. Rec. 2341-2342; and the rules fashioned in this manner were from time to time stated and restated by the Commission for the guidance of the federal establishment. Civil Service Form 1236 of September 1939, for example, purported to publish and restate the law of "Political Activity and Political Assessments" for federal officeholders and employees.

Civil Service Rule I covered only the classified service. The experience of the intervening years, particularly that *560 of the 1936 and 1938 political campaigns, convinced a majority in Congress that the prohibition against taking an active part in political management and political campaigns should be extended to the entire federal service. 84 Cong. Rec. 4303, 9595, 9604, and 9610. A bill introduced for this purpose, S. 1871, "to prevent pernicious political activities," easily passed the Senate, 84 Cong. Rec. 4191-4192; but both the constitutionality and the advisability of purporting to restrict the political activities of employees were heatedly debated in the House. Id., at 9594-9639. The bill was enacted, however. 53 Stat. 1147. This was the so-called Hatch Act, named after the Senator who was its chief proponent. In its initial provisions, §§ 1 and 2, it forbade anyone from coercing or interfering with the vote of another person and prohibited federal employees from using their official positions to influence or interfere with or affect the election or nomination of certain federal officials. Sections 3 and 4 of the Act prohibited the promise of, or threat of termination of, employment or compensation for the purpose of influencing or securing political activity, or support or opposition for any candidate.

Section 9 (a), which provided the prohibition against political activity now found in 5 U. S. C. § 7324 (a) (2), with which we are concerned in this case, essentially restated Civil Service Rule I, with an important exception. It made it

"unlawful for any person employed in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, to use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or affecting the result thereof. No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or *561 in political campaigns. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects."

Excepted from the restriction were the President, Vice President, and specified officials in policy-making positions. Section 9 (b) required immediate removal for violators and forbade the use of appropriated funds thereafter to pay compensation to such persons.

Section 9 differed from Civil Service Rule I in important respects. It applied to all persons employed by the Federal Government, with limited exceptions; it made dismissal from office mandatory upon an adjudication of a violation; and, whereas Civil Service Rule I had stated that persons retained the right to express their private opinions on all political subjects, the statute omitted the word "private" and simply privileged all employees "to express their opinions on all political subjects."

On the day prior to signing the bill, President Franklin Roosevelt sent a message to Congress stating his conviction that the bill was constitutional and recommending that Congress at its next session consider extending the Act to state and local government employees. 84 Cong. Rec. 10745-10747 and 10875. This, Congress quickly proceeded to do. The Act of July 19, 1940, c. 640, 54 Stat. 767, extended the Hatch Act to officers and employees of state and local agencies "whose principal employment is in connection with any activity which is financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the United States . . . ." The Civil Service Commission was empowered under § 12 (b) to investigate and adjudicate violations of the Act by state and local employees. Also relevant for present purposes, § 9 (a) of the Hatch Act was amended so that all persons covered by the Act were free to "express their opinions on all political subjects and candidates." (Emphasis *562 added.) Moreover, § 15 defined § 9 (a)'s prohibition against taking an active part in political management or in political campaigns as proscribing "the same activities on the part of such persons as the United States Civil Service Commission has heretofore determined are at the time this section takes effect prohibited on the part of employees in the classified civil service of the United States by the provisions of the civil-service rules prohibiting such employees from taking any active part in political management or in political campaigns." Under § 18, now 5 U. S. C. § 7326, the prohibition against political activity was not to be construed to prohibit political activity in nonpartisan elections or in connection with questions not specifically identified with any national or state political party, such as "questions relating to constitutional amendments, referendums, approval of municipal ordinances, and others of a similar character . . . ."^[7]

In 1950, § 9 (b), of the Act, requiring removal from office for violating the Act, was amended by providing that the Commission by unanimous vote could impose a lesser penalty, but in no case less than 90 days' suspension without pay. 64 Stat. 475. The minimum sanction was reduced to 30 days' suspension without pay in 1962. 76 Stat. 750.

In 1966, Congress determined to review the restrictions of the Hatch Act on the partisan political activities of public employees. For this purpose, the Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel was created. *563 80 Stat. 868. The Commission reported in 1968, recommending some liberalization of the political-activity restrictions on federal employees, but not abandoning the fundamental decision that partisan political activities by government employees must be limited in major respects. 1 Report of Commission on Political Activity of Government Personnel, supra. Since that time, various bills have been introduced in Congress, some following the Commission's recommendations^[8] and some proposing much more substantial revisions of the Hatch Act.^[9] In 1972, hearings were held on some proposed legislation; but no new legislation has resulted.^[10]

This account of the efforts by the Federal Government to limit partisan political activities by those covered by the Hatch Act should not obscure the equally relevant fact that all 50 States have restricted the political activities of their own employees.^[11]

*564 B

Until now, the judgment of Congress, the Executive, and the country appears to have been that partisan political activities by federal employees must be limited if the Government is to operate effectively and fairly, elections are to play their proper part in representative government, and employees themselves are to be sufficiently free from improper influences. E. g., 84 Cong. Rec. 9598, 9603; 86 Cong. Rec. 2360, 2621, 2864, 9376. The restrictions so far imposed on federal employees are not aimed at particular parties, groups, or points of view, but apply equally to all partisan activities of the type described. They discriminate against no racial, ethnic, or religious minorities. Nor do they seek to control political opinions or beliefs, or to interfere with or influence anyone's vote at the polls.

But, as the Court held in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968), the government has an interest in regulating the conduct and "the speech of its employees that differ[s] significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general. The problem in any case is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the [government], as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." Although Congress is free to strike a different balance than it has, if it so chooses, we think the balance it has so far struck is sustainable by the obviously important interests sought to be served by the limitations on partisan political activities now contained in the Hatch Act.

It seems fundamental in the first place that employees in the Executive Branch of the Government, or those working for any of its agencies, should administer the law *565 in accordance with the will of Congress, rather than in accordance with their own or the will of a political party. They are expected to enforce the law and execute the programs of the Government without bias or favoritism for or against any political party or group or the members thereof. A major thesis of the Hatch Act is that to serve this great end of Government—the impartial execution of the laws—it is essential that federal employees, for example, not take formal positions in political parties, not undertake to play substantial roles in partisan political campaigns, and not run for office on partisan political tickets. Forbidding activities like these will reduce the hazards to fair and effective government. See 84 Cong. Rec. 9598; 86 Cong. Rec. 2433-2434, 2864; Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417 before the Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 171.

There is another consideration in this judgment: 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.

Another major concern of the restriction against partisan activities by federal employees was perhaps the immediate occasion for enactment of the Hatch Act in 1939. That was the conviction that the rapidly expanding Government work force should not be employed to build a powerful, invincible, and perhaps corrupt political machine. The experience of the 1936 and 1938 campaigns convinced Congress that these dangers were sufficiently real that substantial barriers should be raised against the party in power—or the party out of power, for that matter—using the thousands or hundreds of thousands of federal employees, paid for at public expense, to man its *566 political structure and political campaigns. E. g., 84 Cong. Rec. 9595, 9598, 9604, 9610.

A related concern, and this remains as important as any other, 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. See, e. g., id., at 9598, 9603; 86 Cong. Rec. 2433-2434; Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417, supra, at 171. It may be urged that prohibitions against coercion are sufficient protection; but for many years the joint judgment of the Executive and Congress has been that to protect the rights of federal employees with respect to their jobs and their political acts and beliefs it is not enough merely to forbid one employee to attempt to influence or coerce another.^[12] For example, at the hearings in 1972 on proposed legislation for liberalizing the prohibition against political activity, the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission stated that "the prohibitions against active participation in partisan political *567 management and partisan political campaigns constitute the most significant safeguards against coercion . . . ." Hearings on S. 3374 and S. 3417, supra, at 52. Perhaps Congress at some time will come to a different view of the realities of political life and Government service; but that is its current view of the matter, and we are not now in any position to dispute it. Nor, in our view, does the Constitution forbid it.

Neither the right to associate nor the right to participate in political activities is absolute in any event. See, e. g., Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 336 (1972); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 140-141 (1972); Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431 (1971); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 30-31 (1968). Nor are the management, financing, and conduct of political campaigns wholly free from governmental regulation.^[13] We agree with the basic holding of Mitchell that plainly identifiable acts of political management and political campaigning on the part of federal employees may constitutionally be prohibited. Until now this has been the judgment of the lower federal courts,^[14] and we do not understand the District Court in this case to have questioned the constitutionality of a law that was specifically limited to prohibiting the conduct in which Mr. Poole in the Mitchell case admittedly engaged.

*568 III

But however constitutional the proscription of identifiable partisan conduct in understandable language may be, the District Court's judgment was that § 7324 (a) (2) was both unconstitutionally vague and fatally overbroad. Appellees make the same contentions here, but we cannot agree that the section is unconstitutional on its face for either reason.

As an initial matter, we must have clearly in mind the statutory prohibitions that we are examining for impermissible vagueness and overbreadth.

Section 7324 (a) (2) provides that an employee in an executive agency must not take "an active part in political management or in political campaigns" and goes on to say that this prohibition refers to "those acts of political management or political campaigning which were prohibited on the part of employees in the competitive service before July 19, 1940, by determinations of the Civil Service Commission under the rules prescribed by the President." Section 7324 (b) privileges an employee to vote as he chooses and to express his opinion on political subjects and candidates, and §§ 7324 (c) and (d), as well as § 7326, also limit the applicability of § 7324 (a) (2).^[15]*569 The principal issue with respect to this statutory scheme is what Congress intended when it purported to define "an active part in political management or in political campaigns," as meaning the prior interpretations by the Civil Service Commission under Civil Service Rule I which contained the identical prohibition.

*570 Earlier in this opinion it was noted that this definition was contained in § 15 of the 1940 Act. As recommended by the Senate Committee, S. Rep. No. 1236, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 2, 4, § 15 conferred broad rulemaking authority on the Civil Service Commission to spell out the meaning of "an active part in political management or in political campaigns."^[16] There were, in any event, strong objections to extending the Hatch Act to those state employees working in federally financed programs, see, e. g., 86 Cong. Rec. 2486, 2793-2794, 2801-2802, and to § 15, in particular, as being an unwise and invalid delegation of legislative power to the Commission. See, e. g., id., at 2352, 2426-2427, 2579, 2794, 2875. The matter was vigorously debated; and ultimately Senator Hatch, the principal proponent and manager of the bill, offered a substitute for § 15, id., at 2928 and 2937, limiting the reach of the prohibition to those same activities that the Commission "has heretofore determined are at the time of the passage of this act prohibited on the part of employees" in the classified service by the similar provision in Civil Service Rule I.^[17] The matter was further debated, *571 and the amendment carried. Id., at 2958-2959.

The District Court and appellees construe § 15, now part of § 7324 (a) (2), as incorporating each of the several thousand adjudications of the Civil Service Commission under Civil Service Rule I, many of which are said to be undiscoverable, inconsistent, or incapable of yielding any meaningful rules to govern present or future conduct. In any event, the District Court held the prohibition against taking an active part in political management and political campaigns to be itself an insufficient guide to employee behavior and thought the definitional addendum of § 15 only compounded the confusion by referring the concerned employees to an impenetrable jungle of Commission proceedings, orders, and rulings. 346 F. Supp., at 582-583, 585.

We take quite a different view of the statute. As we see it, our task is not to destroy the Act if we can, but to construe it, if consistent with the will of Congress, so as to comport with constitutional limitations. With this in mind and having examined with some care the proceedings surrounding the passage of the 1940 Act and adoption of the substitute for § 15, we think it appears plainly enough that Congress intended to deprive the Civil Service Commission of rulemaking power in the sense of exercising a subordinate legislative role in fashioning a more expansive definition of the kind of conduct *572 that would violate the prohibition against taking an active part in political management or political campaigns. But it is equally plain, we think, that Congress accepted the fact that the Commission had been performing its investigative and adjudicative role under Civil Service Rule I since 1907 and that the Commission had, on a case-by-case basis, fleshed out the meaning of Rule I and so developed a body of law with respect to what partisan conduct by federal employees was forbidden by the rule. 86 Cong. Rec. 2342, 2353. It is also apparent, in our view, that the rules that had evolved over the years from repeated adjudications were subject to sufficiently clear and summary statement for the guidance of the classified service. Many times during the debate on the floor of the Senate, Senator Hatch and others referred to a summary list of such prohibitions, see, e. g., id., at 2929, 2937-2938, 2942-2943, 2949, 2952-2953, the Senator's ultimate reference being to Civil Service Form No. 1236 of September 1939, the pertinent portion of which he placed in the Record, id., at 2938-2940,^[18] and which was the Commission's then-current effort to restate the prevailing prohibitions of Civil *573 Service Rule I, as spelled out in its adjudications to that date. It was this administrative restatement of Civil Service Rule I law, modified to the extent necessary to reflect the provisions of the 1939 and 1940 Acts themselves, *574 that, in our view, Congress intended to serve as its definition of the general proscription against partisan activities.^[19] It was within the limits of these rules that the Civil Service Commission was to proceed to perform its role under the statute.

Not only did Congress expect the Commission to continue its accustomed role with respect to federal employees, but also in § 12 (b) of the 1940 Act Congress expressly assigned the Commission the enforcement task with respect to state employees now covered by the Act. *575 The Commission was to issue notice, hold hearings, adjudicate, and enforce. This process, inevitably and predictably, would entail further development of the law within the bounds of, and necessarily no more severe than, the 1940 rules and would be productive of a more refined definition of what conduct would or would not violate the statutory prohibition of taking an active part in political management and political campaigns.

It is thus not surprising that there were later editions of Form 1236,^[20] or that in 1970 the Commission again purported to restate the law of forbidden political activity and, informed by years of intervening adjudications, again sought to define those acts which are forbidden and those which are permitted by the Hatch Act. These regulations, 5 CFR pt. 733, are wholly legitimate descendants of the 1940 restatement adopted by Congress and were arrived at by a process that Congress necessarily anticipated would occur down through the years. We accept them as the current and, in most respects, the longstanding interpretations of the statute by the agency charged with its interpretation and enforcement. It is to these regulations purporting to construe § 7324 as actually applied in practice, as well as to the statute itself, with its various exclusions, that we address ourselves in rejecting the claim that the Act is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Law Students Research Council v. Wadmond, 401 U. S. 154, 162-163 (1971); cf. Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520-521 (1972).

Whatever might be the difficulty with a provision against taking "active part in political management or in political campaigns," the Act specifically provides that the employee retains the right to vote as he chooses *576 and to express his opinion on political subjects and candidates. The Act exempts research and educational activities supported by the District of Columbia or by religious, philanthropic, or cultural organizations, 5 U. S. C. § 7324 (c); and § 7326 exempts nonpartisan political activity: questions, that is, that are not identified with national or state political parties are not covered by the Act, including issues with respect to constitutional amendments, referendums, approval of municipal ordinances, and the like. Moreover, the plain import of the 1940 amendment to the Hatch Act is that the proscription against taking an active part in the proscribed activities is not open-ended but is limited to those rules and proscriptions that had been developed under Civil Service Rule I up to the date of the passage of the 1940 Act. Those rules, as refined by further adjudications within the outer limits of the 1940 rules, were restated by the Commission in 1970 in the form of regulations specifying the conduct that would be prohibited or permitted by § 7324 and its companion sections.

We have set out these regulations in the margin.^[21] We *577 see nothing impermissibly vague in 5 CFR § 733.122, which specifies in separate paragraphs the various activities deemed to be prohibited by § 7324 (a) (2). There *578 might be quibbles about the meaning of taking an "active part in managing" or about "actively participating in . . . fund-raising" or about the meaning of becoming a "partisan" candidate for office; but there are limitations in the English language with respect to being both specific *579 and manageably brief, and it seems to us that although the prohibitions may not satisfy those intent on finding fault at any cost, they are set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can sufficiently understand and comply with, without sacrifice to the public interest. "[T]he general class of offenses to which . . . [the provisions are] directed is plainly within [their] terms, . . . [and they] will not be struck down as vague, even though marginal cases could be put where doubts might arise." United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 618 (1954). Surely, there seemed to be little question in the minds of the plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit as to the meaning of the law, or as to whether or not the conduct in which they desire to engage was or was not prohibited by the Act.

The Act permits the individual employee to "express his opinion on political subjects and candidates," 5 U. S. C. § 7324 (b); and the corresponding regulation, 5 CFR § 733.111 (a) (2), privileges the employee to "[e]xpress his opinion as an individual privately and publicly on political subjects and candidates." The section of the regulations which purports to state the partisan acts that are proscribed, id., § 733.122, forbids in subparagraph (a) (10) the endorsement of "a partisan candidate for public office or political party office in a political advertisement, a broadcast, campaign literature, or similar material," and in subparagraph (a) (12), prohibits "[a]ddressing a convention, caucus, rally, or similar gathering of a political party in support of or in opposition to a partisan candidate for public office or political party office." Arguably, there are problems in meshing § 733.111 (a) (2) with §§ 733.122 (a) (10) and (12), but we think the latter prohibitions sufficiently clearly carve out the prohibited political conduct from the expressive activity permitted by the prior section to survive any *580 attack on the ground of vagueness or in the name of any of those policies that doctrine may be deemed to further.

It is also important in this respect that the Commission has established a procedure by which an employee in doubt about the validity of a proposed course of conduct may seek and obtain advice from the Commission and thereby remove any doubt there may be as to the meaning of the law, at least insofar as the Commission itself is concerned.^[22]

Neither do we discern anything fatally overbroad about the statute when it is considered in connection with the Commission's construction of its terms represented by the 1970 regulations we now have before us. The major difficulties in this respect again relate to the prohibition in §§ 733.122 (a) (10) and (12) on endorsements in advertisements, broadcasts, and literature and on speaking at political party meetings in support of partisan candidates for public or party office. But these restrictions are clearly stated, they are political acts normally performed