A growing number of federal agencies and staff are explicitly blaming Democrats for the current government shutdown. The political messaging by the agencies may be a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.Furloughed federal employees at some agencies have been instructed to set out-of-office messages explaining that they are not working because Democrats caused a shutdown. Government agency websites also have displayed messages informing site visitors the websites are temporarily on hold due to the “Democrat-led” shutdown.Other agency websites have used more combative language.“The radical left has chosen to shut down the United States government in the name of reckless spending and obstructionism,” the treasury department’s website reads.Similarly, the US Department of Agriculture’s website says that their site will not be updated “due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown”.According to Department of Education (DoE) sources, DoE officials changed the language in employees’ automated out-of-office replies to include rhetoric blaming the shutdown on Democrats.The USDA website, blaming Democrats for the US government shutdown. Photograph: USDA“This message is uniform and provided to us by the Department. We all enabled the auto-reply before logging off for the shutdown,” a DoE employee said, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation. “However, the Department has gone in without our knowledge or approval and changed the message.”NBC News previously reported on the changes to the DoE employees’ automated email messages.The government shut down on Wednesday at midnight, after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement before the Tuesday night deadline. As the Guardian’s Chris Stein explained, Democrats are demanding a series of concessions related to healthcare, funding for public media and foreign aid. As a result of the shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed and agencies have shut down key functions.Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, a top Democrat and a constitutional lawyer, accused the administration of turning taxpayer-funded websites and communications into “MAGA propaganda organs” in what he said appeared to be a “naked violation” of the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that restricts federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job.“If any agency head under any previous Administration ever used official letterhead to promote their political views, they would have been instantly fired, if not prosecuted,” Raskin said in a statement on Thursday. “There is a reason for this. Taxpayers cannot be forced to be a captive audience for propaganda against the Administration’s opponents every time they inquire about their benefits and rights.”By reviewing agency websites and news reports, the Guardian has tracked a number of federal government agencies promoting language that blames Democrats for the shutdown. They include: