On Sept. 30, 2025, as a U.S. government shutdown loomed, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development featured a pop-up on its website reading, "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people."

Another pop-up posted after the government shutdown started read, "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need."

The phrasing of these pop-ups caused concern online, with some claims (archived, archived) saying they violated the Hatch Act. That federal law, passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees. One of its aims, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, is to ensure that federal programs are "administered in a nonpartisan fashion."

One Facebook user who posted (archived) screenshots of the pre-shutdown pop-up wrote, "Went to the HUD web site this morning to check something for work and was met with these two messages—one a popup added to the landing page, one at the top of the landing page—and I need someone to explain to me like I'm five how this isn't a Hatch Act violation."

The claim also appeared on Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking if claims about the pop-ups and the Hatch Act were true.

The OSC, which is the office that would investigate and determine whether HUD's pop-ups violated the Hatch Act, had not responded to Snopes' request for comment at the time of this writing. Given the government shutdown, it was unclear whether the office continued to operate. 

Expert opinions differed as to whether HUD's pop-ups violated the Hatch Act. The OSC last issued guidance on "Official Agency Communications" in 2024 but acknowledged in that guidance that "each case involving official communications turns on the specific facts involved." Given the above, we have not given this claim a rating.

According to the Hatch Act, an employee covered by the act may not "use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." Federal employees can be fired, demoted, suspended, temporarily barred from working in federal service and/or fined up to $1,000 for breaching the act.

The OSC can charge a federal employee after investigating complaints. The Merit Systems Protection Board decides the appropriate disciplinary action. 

Expert opinions differed

Law professors, practicing lawyers and think tanks differed in their assessment of HUD's pop-ups. 

Professor Richard W. Painter from the University of Minnesota Law School said via email that he was "not convinced" the pop-ups were a "clear cut violation of the Hatch Act." Similarly, Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a progressive government watchdog organization, said via email that the HUD pop-ups were "inappropriately partisan" but not an outright violation. Rather, Sherman argued, the pop-ups violated the "spirit" of the Hatch Act and raised concerns that "agency employees are violating their legal obligation to provide impartial service to all members of the public."

Meanwhile, Public Citizen, a nonprofit, progressive consumer-rights advocacy group and think tank, called the pre-shutdown pop-up an "obvious" violation. The organization said it had filed a complaint with the OSC. 

At the time of this writing, U.S. and international reports claimed HUD was not the only department using language that blamed Democrats for the government shutdown. Both Painter and Bradley P. Moss, a partner at Mark S. Zaid P.C. who specialized in national security, federal employment and security clearance law, speculated that the language was part of what Painter called "a coordinated executive branch campaign to lobby Congress."

Moss, who said via email that HUD's pop-ups "runs afoul of the very purpose of the Hatch Act" added a comment about President Donald Trump's time in office: "In our current political reality, however, it is just one more reminder of how much Mr. Trump has dismantled the foundations of our government to serve his own political agenda."

We reached out to the White House to ask whether it provided guidance to departments on the language used in communications about the government shutdown and received an auto-reply email that blamed staff shortages and longer reply times on "the Democrat Shutdown." 

The message continued, "As you await a response, please remember this could have been avoided if the Democrats voted for the clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government open." We await a fuller reply to our query.

OSC mainly concerned about influence on elections

Though the OSC had not confirmed whether it was investigating the HUD pop-ups at the time of this writing, an opinion from an investigation published in 2024 showed how the office considered complaints about political communications. 

A Sept. 5, 2024, opinion titled "Hatch Act Advisory Opinion Regarding Official Agency Communications" summarized the office's thinking on complaints that alleged then-Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona had violated the Hatch Act "by sending an email to federal student loan borrowers about court rulings affecting federal student loan programs as a result of lawsuits brought by 'Republican elected officials.'"

The office concluded that Cardona did not violate the act. In its opinion, the office primarily considered whether Cardona's communication sought to use his "official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election," as prohibited by the Hatch Act under 5 U.S. Code § 7323. The office found the facts of the case did not support that conclusion.

However, the office said there were cases where "references to a political party or political candidate in official communications" could constitute political activity and a breach of the Hatch Act. 

"This might include if, for example, the communication also references voting or an upcoming election and/or the communication contains advocacy in support of, or opposition to, the electoral prospects of a political party, partisan political group, or candidate for partisan political office," the OSC wrote in that 2024 opinion.

The OSC further wrote that "each case involving official communications turns on the specific facts involved." 

As such, it remained unclear at the time of this writing whether the OSC would investigate the HUD pop-ups or other communications from government departments that used similar language about the Democratic Party's role in the government shutdown, and, if so, what its conclusion would be.

Lawmakers in the Senate missed the Oct. 1, 2025, deadline to pass a bill funding the government resulting in a shutdown. It was unclear at the time of this writing how long the shutdown, which was the first since 2019, would last.