It’s a time honored racket, Save Jerseyans, and not limited to one side of the aisle.
Some members of Congress nevertheless abuse the “franking” privilege more than others.
Unfamiliar with the term? (Very) long story short, the U.S. House of Representatives permits its members to use federal funds (!) – your tax dollars (!!) – to send mailings to their constituents via the U.S. Postal Service. The purported purpose is communication, though more often than not it’s used to get the incumbent’s name into the mailbox of his or her voting public without having to expend any extra valuable campaign cash. The practice dates all the way back to the Continental Congress before the country technically existed.
Regulations have come into play over time. Specifically, as explained by the Committee on House Administration, “[a] Member may not send any unsolicited mass mailing or mass communication less than 60 days immediately before the date of any primary or general election (whether regular, special, or runoff) in which the Member is a candidate for public office.”
This year’s blackout begins today (September 9th).
Right on cue… a friend living in Mikie Sherrill’s NJ-11 found the following letter in his mailbox today, arriving right under the wire. He received two (one for himself, and one for a former male resident – female residents were excluded which is interesting in of itself):
Normally, these letters take the form of trumpeting a member’s accomplishments.
Having failed spectacularly at repealing the unpopular SALT cap, Mikie Sherrill has no real accomplishments of note to take back to her suburban Northern Jersey district. She’s apparently decided instead to pimp out her staff for constituent favors down the homestretch of Election 2022.
Need a passport? Need a refund? Benefits?
I’m surprised she didn’t offer staffer-administered massages! But I don’t recall her calling on Governor Murphy to get his house in order during the Covid-19 pandemic when Sherrill’s constituents languished for months without access to schools, driver’s licenses, unemployment benefits, and a host of other vital services. Nah. She waited until the 11th hour of Election 2022 to be a hero.
It’s precisely the sort of institutionalized (read: legal) corruption that protects incumbents at the expense of the democratic process… the same process Democrat politicians claim to revere.
