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« Hard-Hitting Humor | Main | Not One Of My Regular Readers » September 21, 2006Sen. Henry: Using Tax $$$ To Mail Campaign Literature is "Proper Use of Taxpayer Money"
City Paper reporter John Rodgers notes that Henry spent $7,000 of your tax dollars to send out his June "newsletter," which reads a lot like a campaign mailer. Krumm, in an email to me, notes that the June newsletter isn't the only time Sen. Henry has used tax dollars to send out the campaign literature - as Sen. Henry also did it again just this week. Krumm explains on his blog: On September 15, Senator Douglas Henry mailed a letter printed on official Tennessee Senate stationery, with postage apparently paid for by Tennessee taxpayers, to government employees. The purpose of the letter is to "update" recipients on several measures [benefitting state employees] that he "strongly supported" through the General Assembly session completed four months ago. ... Clearly the timing, the subject matter, and the audience (he's been endorsed by every government union), show this taxpayer-funded letter for what it is: a campaign mailing.Of course it was. State employees already know about every single piece of legislation described in Sen. Henry's "news" letter. While Sen. Henry in today's City Paper story calls the use of taxpayers' dollars to fund incumbent's mailing of campaign literature disguised as newsletters "a proper use of taxpayer money," Krumm is making a proposal to reform the system: Free printing and postage for legislators has always been an incumbent privilege that is ripe for abuse. Yet, it is important that Legislators stay in contact with their constituents. That, after all, is their job. So let me offer a compromise: Except for individual letters to constituents, legislators should not be allowed free government printing and postage from the election filing deadline through election day. I'll be happy to advance legislation to that effect.Krumm also raises some good questions about Sen. Henry's $7,000 June mailing, given that it would take a lot more than that to send the "newsletter" to every voter in the district. He also notes that, by law, legislators are limited to $6,832 a year in "free" postage, but in writing that law the legislature made it legal for senators to "loan" other senators from their mailing accounts. Krum writes: Not surprisingly, all of the lenders listed are free from the burden of having to run a contested campaign this election season. Those include Senators Randy McNally, Joe Haynes, and Jerry Cooper. Clearly what we have here is an abuse of the privileges of elected officeKrumm's questions: Krumm also notes that Sen. Henry's use of tax dollars to mail his newsletter to voters in his district this close to an election is illegal for members of Congress. Says Krumm, "When the Members of Congress hold themselves to a higher standard than the Tennessee Legislature, you know you have an ethics problem in the Volunteer State." I would look for Sen. Henry's response on his blog, but he doesn't have a blog. So I'll email his campaign for a response. Given that the Henry campaign dodged all questions regarding the questionable ethics of a suspiciously timed pro-Henry press release issued by Nashville State Community College on the eve of the August primary lauding Henry for something he did months earlier, I don't expect the senator or his campaign to respond, but fairness requires I give Sen. Henry a chance to explain to the people of Tennessee why he used tax dollars for a targeted campaign mailout. Posted in Tennessee Government News
Comments
Doesn't Henry return his Senate salary to the state? Spending money like this seems very odd. Looks like a guy with the megabucks he has would just go ahead and foot the bill. Posted by: "John Galt" at September 21, 2006 1:19 PMHenry isn't the only one. A Republican candidate for re-election to the state Senate spent more than $40,000 from his legislative mailing account to promote what Democrats and the governor's office are calling campaign events in his district. Posted by: Rick Forman at September 21, 2006 2:11 PMRick, Note that Ketron's town hall meeting is being called a "campaign event" by Democrats including the governor's office, but that doesn't make it so. There is a vast difference between Sen. Ketron’s tax-paid-for mailing and Sen. Henry’s. First, Ketron’s invited people to an event, a townhall meeting, happening currently, and about a current issue. He could not very well have sent the mailing six months ago or six months from now. It had to be sent right around now, given that the town hall meeting was when it was. Henry’s letters, on the other hand, were merely recaps of old news, in some cases several months old, and the "news" in the September "newsletter" was not likely to be news to the people to whom he sent the mailing - they were state employees and would already have known, thanks to the TSEA, all about every last little piece of info in Henry’s letter. The only purpose of the letter then was for Henry to glom a little glory for legislation passed months earlier, and to grab that glory in the middle of a campaign for re-election, and to do so in a way that shifted the printing and postage cost to taxpayers instead of Sen. Henry’s campaign. I find a lot less wrong with Sen. Ketron using his legislative postage to announce a town hall meeting on the single hottest political issue of the day, and to those critics who complain that only Republican legislators were on the speakers’ panel, well, it is Tennessee’s Republican legislators who are pushing legislation to stem the tide of illegals, while Tennessee’s Democratic legislators aren’t exactly helping the effort. In addition, Ketron's town hall meeting gave people who disagreed with Ketron the change to confront him publicly, while Henry merely sent out a self-promotional piece that provided no way for interaction with consituents. (Sen. Henry's opponent, by contrast, has a blog to facilitate interaction with voters and potential constituents, even with folks who disagree with him.) The purpose of the legislative postage accounts is to facilitate communication between legislators and their constituents. Both Ketron and Henry indeed did communicate with constituents, but Ketron communicated with constituents on a current issue that is a hotly debated issue in the current election campaign, an issue upon which many voters will make their decision, while Henry's was about old news that made Henry look good to the people to whom he mailed the letter. Big difference. Posted by: Bill Hobbs at September 21, 2006 2:57 PMOkay, B-Ho, you twist your little partisan mind into believing that Ketron did not do a campaign event. 60 days before election day? Invitation sent to every registered voter in the district? $40,000 spent on printing and postage. No Democrats invited to either event, even though there are four Democratic members of the State House in Ketron's district. It's quacking, B-Ho, but you are too partisan to call it a duck. Posted by: Milton at September 21, 2006 3:23 PMWhoa Bill, Both sides will be howling at the moon before it's over. I like to see that Bob Krumm is running a very open, up front and accessible campaign while his opponent is hiding under his incumbancy. I find it curious though that Bob's blog hasn't received more comments/inquiries from voters in his district. Could be he's responding directly to emails. He is quick to post up a response and thoroughly explain his position on the issues. May be too early yet. Posted by: Rick Forman at September 21, 2006 11:07 PMFor the last time, the town hall meeting in Columbia was not a campaign event. Ketron and DuBois barely mentioned the immigration-related bills they have sponsored and did not talk about all of the many demagnetization bills they have sponsored -- a long list. Most of the time alloted was given to members of the audience to walk to the microphone and speak. Most of those folks still don't know all that Ketron and DuBois have done to combat this problem -- I could tell by the comments the speakers made. I got up to walk to the mike and run through the list of immigration-related bills these men and other Republicans have sponsored and co-sponsored, but I sat down, deciding not to, lest my presence and speech be used by dummies to construe this much-needed town hall meeting as a campaign event. Posted by: Donna Locke at September 21, 2006 11:12 PMPost a comment
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State Sen. Doug Henry, the only Senate incumbent in a contested election this year, is one of a handful of legislators caught using taxpayer-funded postage and printing to send out what looks like campaign literature, according to 