More than a dozen airports across the country are refusing to display a video of Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and any travel disruptions that may result from it. Representatives for the airports said that the video was overly partisan.
“It is T.S.A.’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” Ms. Noem said in the roughly 30-second video. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this many of our operations are impacted and most of our T.S.A. employees are working without pay.”
The list of airports includes the major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, as well as major airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., as well as several other regional airports.
While some airports cited internal or municipal policies that barred politically partisan messaging for preventing them from showing the video, others pointed to state and federal law. Kara Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Port of Portland in Oregon, said in a statement that the video violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law intended to maintain a nonpartisan federal work force and to limit the political activities of federal employees. Ms. Hansen said the Transportation Security Administration asked Port of Portland to show the video on Thursday.
Ken Jenkins, the Westchester County executive and a Democrat, said in a statement that the video was “inappropriate, unacceptable and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials.”
“The P.S.A. politicizes the impacts of a federal government shutdown on T.S.A. operations, and the county finds the tone to be unnecessarily alarmist — particularly as it relates to operations at Westchester County Airport,” he added.
Mr. Jenkins said that the T.S.A. requested replacing a previous video about the new Real ID requirement, which has been playing at screens near T.S.A. security checkpoints at airports across the country, with Ms. Noem’s shutdown announcement.
Keith Jeffries, a vice president of K2 Security Screening Group and a former T.S.A. federal security director at Los Angeles International Airport, said that control of TV monitors varies by airport — sometimes the T.S.A. controls them, and sometimes the airport does. Control of the monitors can even vary by terminal.
In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security, repeated Ms. Noem’s video message, adding that it was “unfortunate our work force has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship.”
“Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” she added.
During the shutdown, the vast majority of the 61,000 T.S.A. workers must work without pay, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The first payday on which T.S.A. officers will not receive a paycheck will be Oct. 24, if the government is still shut down.
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Christine Chung is a Times reporter covering airlines and consumer travel.
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