Gazelka and Eastlund Violate House Ethics Rules, #3

Yesterday we broke the news that State Representatives Paul Gazelka (R-12A) and Rob Eastlund (R-17A) have been violating House ethics rules by using taxpayer dollars to campaign.  We now have the letters in question and can confirm that the dates these letters were sent out on clearly consititutes a violation of the “House Policy on Campaign Activity” detailed in CRLAR97-13.

Here are the letters that Reps Gazelka and Eastlund, respectively, sent out:

Gazelka’s mailing is dated August 14th and Eastlund’s is dated August 4th, both clearly after the 60 day cut-off which would have begun July 20th.  This constitutes an unfair and unethical use of taxpayer dollars in preparing, printing, and mailing what amounts to campaign material.  Both Representatives, and any others doing the same thing for that matter, should fully reimburse the Minnesota taxpayers for these unethical expenditures.

This is plain and simple, State Representatives Paul Gazelka and Rob Eastlund are abusing their powers by campaigning on state time and using taxpayer money to do so.

Some of these rules are confusing, so I have laid out a more detailed explanation below.

The rules here are tough to follow and there has been some resulting confusion, so let me lay it out for everyone as best I can. 

Incumbents have certain recognized advantages when it comes to campaigning and one of those advantages is the ability to leverage constituent services in an election year.  Now, constituent services are a very important part of a State Reps’ job, but the House regulates itself by declaring that 60 days after adjournment sine die in an election year, these Reps must be treated as candidates first and foremost.  That’s why CRLAR97-13, the “House Policy on Campaign Activity,” clearly states that any preparation of mass mailings (and these clearly are mass mailings, both are addressed to a general audience) more than 60 days after adjournment of the House in an election year must be treated as campaign material.  And, as such, may not be prepared using state resources.  It is a very clear rule, and this constitutes a clear violation.

Some have confused this House rule with the Minnesota Statute 10A (no thanks to myself) but these are separate issues.  MS 10A deals with the financing of such correspondences and how they must be filed in campaign reports.  MS 10A states that anytime after adjournment and before 60 days after adjournment, mass mailings must be reported as 50% campaign activity and 50% official.  This is an institutionalized incumbent advantage because it allows the incumbent to write-off 50% of the cost against their spending caps for the election, but it doesn’t do much more.  After 60 days after adjournment, 10A states that such mailings must be filed as 100% campaign activity.  With regards to whether or not Gazelka and Eastlund did this, we cannot know until their Q3 filings are made public (which will be shortly).  If they filed properly there is no violation of MS 10A, but still a violation of House Rule CRLAR97-13.  If they filed improperly, there is a violation of both the House Rule and MS 10A.

So, either way it is clear that both Representative Gazelka and Representative Eastlung violated House Ethics rules.  I hope this clears up the specifics surrounding this violation.