Kilroy for Congress: Paid for by the U.S. Taxpayer

What do you do when you're a member of an incredibly unpopular Congress and your big union, big trial lawyer, and Washington insider donors aren't giving you enough money to buy a fighting chance against your vastly more likable combat veteran opponent? The answer for Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy is to subsidize her campaign with your tax dollars.

Congresswoman Kilroy recently hired a communications director for her campaign who will also work part time in her congressional office. As an employee of her congressional office this campaign staffer will draw a federal salary. While Kilroy is hardly the first member of Congress to realize the ability to use tax dollars to pay for a campaign, precedent doesn't make her unprincipled conduct right.

According to the House Ethics Manual congressional staffers are permitted to engage in campaign activities on their "own time" as long as they do not do so in congressional offices or facilities, or otherwise use official resources. (Interestingly, executive branch personnel are subject to much greater restrictions on partisan political activity under the Hatch Act. It would seem the Congress saw fit to exempt itself from ethical standards the rest of the government must follow--part of a pattern of behavior that must be stopped.)

So, in the case of Ms. Kilroy's dual campaign and congressional office staffer, who is policing when he's on his "own time" and when he's on government time? The answer will disturb you.

From the House Ethics Manual:

"What constitutes a staff member's 'own time' is determined by the personnel policies that are in place in the employing office.... [D]ue to the irregular time frames in which the Congress operates, it is unrealistic to impose conventional work hours and rules on congressional employees." (Emphasis added.)

So the only standard for when government time ends and campaign time begins is set by Mary Jo Kilroy, the very woman whose whole future depends on the success of the campaign. Given her history of abusing her authority, I do not find that reassuring.

But surely her tax dollar-subsidized campaign staffer is required to keep a log of how he spends his time, right?

No? Oh, that is bad. One would expect the House of Representatives to, at the very least, have requirements for how congressional staffers who moonlight in their employers' re-election efforts document their time. (Heck, even the lobbying firms Kilroy oh-so-publicly decries have their employees keep time sheets of billable hours!) While the House Ethics Manual states staffers who do campaign work "should" keep records, "[t]here is no set format for maintaining such time records." So we're just supposed to trust Congresswoman Kilroy and her staff. I'd sooner trust Wall Street investment bankers to police themselves.

Between Congresswoman Kilroy's extravagant use of the franking privilege to disseminate what is, essentially, campaign propaganda (It even has the same color scheme.) and this new scandal of putting her campaign communications director on the federal payroll, Mary Jo Kilroy has effectively compelled us into footing the bill for her quenchless ambition. She should be required to change the FEC-mandated disclaimer displayed on all of her official campaign materials from "Paid for by Kilroy for Congress" to "Paid for by You, the U.S. Taxpayer, Sucker!"

Kilroy for Congress: Paid for by the U.S Taxpayer