 After the successive failures of several administration-backed domestic bills, the press dubbed the Senate Majority Leader "bumbling Barkley".He was able to salvage an appropriations bill to cover overspending by the WPA, although it allocated much less funding than Roosevelt had wanted.He helped secure the Hatch Act and "The Washington Daily News" called a 1940 amendment that prohibited campaigning by federally funded state employees a "monument to Alben Barkley's persistence and parliamentary skill".