http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&q=%22scott+bloch%22+ave+maria&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nw The Chopping Bloch
Running amuck as head of the Office of Special Counsel,
Scott Bloch is charged with assembling his own "palace guard"
by Bill Berkowitz
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 28, 2004
When Scott Bloch took over at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) in January of this year, he was a relatively unknown figure brought over by the Bush Administration from the Justice Department's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. Few could have suspected that the agency would spend a good part of the year embroiled in, and responding to, a series of controversies involving charges of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the federal workplace, allegations of cronyism in the agency's hiring practices, and charges that the OSC wasn't paying enough attention to a number of whistleblower reports of waste, fraud and abuse under President Bush.
Early on, Bloch incurred the wrath of the gay community as well as several Democratic members of the House by insisting that the agency review a 1978 law which protected employees and job applicants from being terminated for issues unrelated to their job. Now, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is charging Bloch with withholding records about its own personnel practices, including a contract with a former headmaster of a Catholic boarding school who "left in the wake of allegations concerning priests sexually preying on young students."
In late March, while Democratic legislators were calling on the President to remove or repudiate Bloch, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a powerful Washington, D.C. conservative lobbying group, rushed to his defense: "Firing...Bloch or forcing him, by any means, to reverse his position on this critical matter would be an affront to pro-family Americans, and would be an unwarranted punishment of a public official for merely upholding the rule of law, and the proper limitations on government power."
By early April, the brouhaha created by Bloch appeared to be resolved when the White House insisted he issue a statement signifying that gay and lesbian workers would continue to be protected by the 1978 law. But according to Federal GLOBE, the umbrella organization for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual employee support groups in Federal workplaces, Bloch continues to refuse "to return items to the OSC web site which directly affirm the protections." (For more on this, and Bloch's background, see "Bloch-ing justice -- When Scott Bloch became head of the Office of Special Counsel he declared war on equal protection for gays in federal workplaces.")
Last month, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) announced the filing of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the OSC alleging that a series of non-competitive hires have taken place. In other words, the agency that is "supposed to police compliance with federal civil service rules" was "circumventing civil service rules by using no-bid consultants and hiring on a non-competitive basis."
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