folo

A Florida TV station is reporting that Lee County Sheriff Mike Lee, who — in uniform — warmed up the local knuckledraggers for Sarah Palin with a reference to “Barack Hussein Obama” is now under federal investigation:

Officials with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel say they have received so many phone calls from the public that they launched an investigation into Sheriff Scott on Tuesday.

The question is – did he use his position as sheriff to influence an election? If so, he could be in violation of a federal election law called the Hatch Act.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office receives more than $1 million in federal grant money from everything from human trafficking to bullet proof vests.

But if Sheriff Scott is found in violation of the Hatch Act, the feds can pull two years salary worth of federal funding – the equivalent to $300,000 for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

Another possibility is removal from office. …

The OSC wants to wrap up the investigation before Election Day, sez here.

This reminds me of something I haven’t thought of in years. Back when I was in grad school at the U of Arkansas, my roomie and some other friends were folks who’d arrived in Fayetteville as VISTA volunteers. One fall day (in ’72 I think) we were talking about that year’s election, and one of them explained how the Hatch Act prohibited federal employees from participating in any partisan activity. But his Yankee accent tricked my ear, and at first I thought he was saying “the Hat Check.”

Even after I realized what he actually meant, I still found “Hat Check” a pretty good term for the concept . . .