An ethics watchdog has filed a complaint against 10 Democratic lawmakers, accusing them of using public resources for partisan political purposes.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) claims that the legislators repeatedly used official resources for political gain, including government buildings, official websites, and social media accounts.
The complaint includes examples such as using House video on a campaign website and re-posting official social media posts for political purposes.
“The law at issue is simple,” the release noted, adding that federal resources are not to be utilized for “campaign or political purposes.”
“The rules additionally reiterate that campaign social media accounts cannot contain any official content or resources and cannot re-post official social media posts,” the release said.
“These violations are rampant and obvious, and clearly the OCE’s failure to act has encouraged continued violations. This failure has also incentivized these Members to use House proceedings for political campaigning rather than doing what is in the best interest of the country,” FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold said.
“Likewise, it is also clear why these Members are doing this, it’s for a political advantage and one that is paid for by the taxpayers. The OCE has both the authority and a clear responsibility to ensure each ethics violation is dealt with swiftly. Not doing so both permits clear violations to continue and erodes the public’s trust in the OCE itself,” she said.
FACT alleges that the Office of Congressional Ethics has failed to address these violations, allowing lawmakers to continue without punishment, thereby eroding public trust.
“Currently, numerous Members are using official House resources for political purposes and are doing so both repeatedly and publicly,” FACT wrote.
“The law quite clearly forbids this, yet a handful of Members continue to do so. The most obvious violations are Members using official government resources to campaign on their political social media accounts or using official government platforms to campaign,” the letter read.
“The failure to address this egregious practice has permitted these Members to continue committing violations to this day with impunity. Though to some it may seem like a simple thing on the surface, the Members choosing to break this law do it for a reason — it advantages them politically,” the letter added.
“Not acting upon obvious violations not only permits them to continue but it erodes the public’s trust,” the complaint read.
“In fact, these Members’ campaign social media accounts demonstrate that they consistently use official resources for political purposes and have used numerous different types of taxpayer-funded resources for their political campaigns,” it said.
“For instance, the examples previously provided to the OCE and the attached examples include every type of official resource identified above: use of official House photographs, official House floor and committee proceeding videos, official House work product and press releases, government buildings, and re-posts of official House social media accounts for political purposes,” the letter read.
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