Trends in State Whistleblowing Laws Following the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012

• Author: Patrick C. Exmeyer,So Hee Jeon
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20978449
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20978449

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2022, Vol. 42(2) 287 –311

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20978449

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Article

Trends in State

Whistleblowing Laws

Following the Whistleblower

Protection Enhancement

Act of 2012

Patrick C. Exmeyer1

and So Hee Jeon2

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of whistleblower protection, government has

equipped itself with legal tools to protect whistleblowers. At the federal level, the

Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) of 2012 represents the most

recent legislative action protecting whistleblowers. Currently, all 50 states have their

own whistleblower protection laws. However, given the variations among states

in statutory protections for whistleblowers, a need exists to examine important

changes to state whistleblower laws in light of larger legislative trends at the federal

level. This study addresses this research gap by exploring how state whistleblower

protection laws have changed following passage of the 2012 WPEA through the

lens of institutional theory. Content analysis findings suggest that post-WPEA state

whistleblower laws have adopted changes directly reflecting WPEA provisions.

The findings further suggest that post-WPEA state whistleblower laws also contain

changes which display loose connection to primary components of the WPEA.

Keywords

Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012, state whistleblower laws,

institutional theory, content analysis

1University of Louisiana Monroe, Monroe, Louisiana, USA

2Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, USA

Corresponding Author:

Patrick C. Exmeyer, University of Louisiana Monroe, 109A Strauss Hall, 700 University Avenue, Monroe,

LA 71209, USA.

Email: pexmeyer@ulm.edu

978449ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X20978449Review of Public Personnel AdministrationExmeyer and Jeon

research-article2020

288 Review of Public Personnel Administration 42(2)

Introduction

Transparency and accountability have long been regarded as pillars of ethical gover-

nance in the United States. While various mechanisms exist to promote governmental

transparency and accountability, such as Sunshine laws and the Freedom of

Information Act (FOIA), few parallel the scope and ferocity of the act of whistle-

blowing. Defined as a means of disclosing illegal, immoral, or illegitimate practices

to foster corrective action (Near & Miceli, 1985, p. 4), whistleblowing provides an

indispensable tool for facilitating governmental transparency and accountability

through the revealing of wrongdoing. Publicized cases concerning retaliation against

employees voicing policy concerns in the U.S. Department of Interior, as well as the

possible abuse of authority and political interference in the Internal Revenue Service

concerning audits of elected officials, underscore the considerable impact and public

attention such disclosures can elicit (Exmeyer, 2018; Stein et al., 2019). Similarly,

whistleblowing cases at the state level can result in notable changes to existing whis-

tleblower laws, evidenced by Maryland’s Public School Employee Whistleblower

Act of 2017 following the disclosure of academic fraud in the Montgomery Country

Public School System (St. George, 2020).

Legal protections afforded to whistleblowers may contribute toward encouraging

employees to disclose observed organizational wrongdoing. Statutory protections for

federal employees engaging in whistleblowing began in earnest in the Civil Service

Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978, which established both the U.S. Office of Special

Counsel (OSC) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) as channels for handling

disclosures of wrongdoing. Subsequent expansions of whistleblower protections,

including the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) of 1989 and Notification and

Federal Employment Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act (NoFEAR) of 2002,

broadened considerably following the passage of the Whistleblower Protection

Enhancement Act (WPEA) of 2012 (Peffer et al., 2015).

While laws such as the WPA and WPEA provide protections to federal employees

and guide the organizational behavior of federal agencies, state governments have also

made efforts to protect whistleblowers. However, unlike federal laws providing uni-

form protections for federal employees, statutory protections for state and municipal

whistleblowers vary considerably. While all 50 states have their own statutes to protect

whistleblowers, Callahan and Dworkin (2000) suggest the greatest discrepancies in

whistleblower statutes across states include “the type of whistleblower protected, the

appropriate recipient of the report of wrongdoing, the subject of protected whistle-

blowing, the motive of the whistleblower, the quality of evidence of wrongdoing

required, and the remedies provided to the employee suffering retaliation” (pp. 107–

108). These discrepancies are compounded by states implementing statutory language

that may narrowly tailor protections to employees within specific sectors of public

employment such as health care, education, transportation, and law enforcement. The

dissonant nature of statutory protections for whistleblowers across states creates a void

of critical analysis examining changes to state whistleblower laws following federal

whistleblower legislation.