Roland Straten blasts Pascrell over franked campaign mail

Roland Straten

Roland Straten, Republican candidate for Congress in New Jersey's 8th District, called out his opponent, Democratic incumbent Bill Pascrell, for sending a full-color campaign-brochure-like newsletter, apparently to every resident of the district, as "franked" mail.

In an e-mail addressed yesterday to his mailing list, to which this Examiner subscribes, Straten blasted Pascrell for using taxpayers' money to send out a mailing that, by Straten's estimate, cost about half of the total cash that Pascrell has on hand for his campaign.

Bill, are you kidding me! You have a $1.5 million war chest, you claim that you are going to win this election hands down, and then you spend approximately $750,000 of my money and the taxpayer's money on your campaign. Shame on you!!

By sending this campaign brochure, he not only confirmed that he is a big spender, but he demonstrated his lack of character and fair play. He demonstrated that he does not want a fair contest on the issues.

(Emphasis in original)

Straten's outrage highlights a problem that predates the American War for Independence and in fact came to be in 1660 for the British House of Commons: the franking privilege. The franking privilege is named for the duplicate signature, or frank, that appears on a piece of official mail sent in the name of a Member of Parliament--or a Member of Congress. Under the franking system, the legislature reimburses the postal service for the costs of sending mail bearing a legislator's signature.

In the USA, every Senator and Representative receives an allowance for a certain number of franked mailings to every household in their State or District. However, franked mail is technically limited as to its purpose:

The franking privilege may only be used for matters of public concern or public service. It may not be used to solicit votes or contributions, to send mail regarding political campaigns or political parties, or to mail autobiographical or holiday greeting materials. Both House and Senate regulations specify limitations on the size and formatting of franked mail. Official funds must be used in the preparation of materials sent under the frank; no private funds may supplement printing, production, or other costs.

Straten calls Pascrell's mailing, reproduced here, a "campaign brochure."

PascrellFlyer

Though its text avoids any statement about the upcoming election and does not mention the Democratic Party, it is obviously a boast about Democratic Party initiatives.  This Examiner posts it here so that any reader may judge for himself whether this constitutes, or ought to constitute, a violation of House franking rules.

In any event, concerned Members have introduced four bills in the House and one in the Senate to attempt to curtail franked mail. One House measure (HR 2687) would forbid a Member to send any mass mailing by this method, thus limiting franked mail to specific responses to constituent questions, correspondence regarding constituent service, military-academy application facilitation, and the like, and any official correspondence within the government that would not be suitable for e-mail (very rare). Another (HR 2788) would require any mass mailing to carry a label stating its cost.

Another measure introduced in the House and Senate would forbid any franked mailing beginning 90 days before their State's primary and continuing through the day of the election. It would also forbid any committee or subcommittee to send franked mail during this time if either the chair, ranking member, or both were up for re-election. Currently, no Senator or congressman may send franked mass mail to constitutents 60 days before the general election, or 60 days (for a Senator) or 90 days (for a Representative) in advance of the primary. Committees and subcommittees are under no election-related restriction.

Straten urged his followers to do two things in response:

1. Send any flyers they got directly to his campaign office, and
2. Publicize the franked mailing as widely as possible.

Straten told this Examiner by telephone his main objection: that no sitting politician ought to be allowed to use official-mailing privileges for personal or campaign use. He was not aware that the mailing was a specific violation of House rules but said that he would research the House rules on franked mail to see whether Pascrell's flyer might be in violation.

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