Drake improperly using tax payer money for campaign ads

Members of Congress are allowed to send mail to constituents free of charge, using something called a franking privilege. Taxpayers also get the privilege of paying to prepare those mailings.

So you'd think Drake would have something urgent to say in her latest communication with 2nd District residents. Instead, she uses glossy magazine stock to paint herself as a champion of anti-immigration reform in a mailing indistinguishable from campaign literature save for a squint-inducing disclosure at the bottom of the last page: "This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense."

In much bigger print, we find out that Drake is a co-sponsor - one of 87 - of a bill to deny automatic citizenship to babies born in America to illegal immigrants. That might be news, until you realize that she signed on to that bill back in November.

The mailing also reveals that she's a co-sponsor - one of 59 - on a bill to crack down on illegal immigrants in the workplace. She signed on to that legislation in February 2005.

The brochure was stuffed in mailboxes at the same time her campaign debuted a TV commercial called "Border." It makes the same points as the mailer, but no one would ever confuse it for the kind of nonpartisan information the franking privilege was intended to disseminate at public expense.

If the timing was a coincidence, then it is one with the convenient benefit of working to Drake's re-election advantage.

She has every right to be proud of her record on such hot-button, campaign-ready issues, but does she have to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to print a four-page, four-color brochure to brag about it?

Perhaps the fire Drake's campaign has aimed at commercials that her opponent had nothing to do with was actually meant to deflect attention from the 2nd District's real advertising mischief.

Good for the Virginian Pilot in highlighting Thelma's hypocritical outrage over ads aimed at her while she behaves inappropriately with her own ads.

Now, I'd like to see some questions about her selective outrage.

Comments