- FRANK-ly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about your taxpayer money.
“Franking Privileges” (named after the Latin word for “free”) allow Congressmembers to send official mail using their signature instead of a stamp; we taxpayers pick up the tab. This is justified by the legitimate need for constituents to hear from their legislators about burning issues.
Sometimes incumbents abuse this privilege, at the expense of our taxpayer dollars, when they’re feeling especially endangered by a strong challenger. Case in point – all year long, corrupt RINO Ken Calvert, nervous about a very strong challenge from progressive Bill Hedrick in the 44th Congressional District, has been subjecting the district’s voters to a nonstop deluge of expensive glossy mailers – a despicably wasteful and unfair advantage.
It’s all good though, there is a limit to this practice – once Election Day is 90 days away or less, you can’t do it any more – and that limit came August 6.
Only WAIT – it turns out there’s a loophole to that law – a Congressman CAN send out up to 499 pieces of mail of a certain kind, on a certain topic – this is known as the “499 loophole.”
And do you think Calvert will find a grotesque way to abuse that loophole? Sure – he already did it right before the June primary, and his spokesman Rebecca Rudman has told the Press-Enterprise that he fully intends to do the same thing as the November election comes up:
He’s going to send out 200 SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT BATCHES of 499 mailers, at your expense.
Got that – 99,800 mailers through this loophole. Just like in June.
Last week, Hedrick asked Calvert to do the honorable thing and stop wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on what are undeniably campaign mailers so close to Election Day. How quixotic of Bill. Not his run. Bill’s run against Ken is not quixotic at all, he came 2% from him in ’08, and the polls are looking real good. No, it’s quixotic of Bill to ask Ken to do the right thing.
It’s computed that since taking office in ’96 Ken has spent $1.4 million of taxpayer money this way. Some nimrods on the comment section of that Press-Enterprise story are all “Big deal, $1.4 million since ’96.” One: It’s been getting worse and worse as he gets more worried about hanging uselessly onto his seat. And Two: If that were the ONLY waste of taxpayer money Ken Calvert is guilty of. Read more of “The Manifold Failings of Ken Calvert” here, and if you live in San Clemente, San Juan Cap, Riverside or Corona, vote for Bill Hedrick!
Bill Hedrick has dedicated 35 years to teaching our children and advocating for educators in our public schools. He currently serves on the Corona-Norco Unified School District Board of Education, overseeing the 8th largest school district in California, serving 53,000 students. Bill is the board’s longest serving member at 22 years and has served five terms as president. In 2008, he came within 3,100 votes of defeating Congressman Ken Calvert, making the race for the California’s 44th Congressional District one of the most competitive in the state.
Let’s see, fat boy found a way to flood the mail with his own campaign materials, at the taxpayers’ expense ? That’s f****d up! Talk about junk mail. It amazes me that right-wing conservatives tolerate this abuse, and keep coming back for more, like a dog to its vomit!
I would definitely not vote for Calvert–he’s a swollen bag of treachery!