Ten Democratic lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi, Cori Bush, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have been hit with an ethics complaint by a watchdog organization.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust alleges that these politicians have repeatedly used public resources for their own political purposes.
The complaint also includes exhibits showing similar behavior by Ayanna Presley, although she was not specifically mentioned in the organization’s release.
“The law at issue is simple,” the release said, noting that government resources cannot be used for “campaign or political purposes.”
The release said that “official House photographs and video, government buildings, a Member’s official website and social media accounts, and anything created by government employees” are considered off-limits.
“The rules additionally reiterate that campaign social media accounts cannot contain any official content or resources and cannot re-post official social media posts,” the release said.
Nevertheless, FACT has claimed that the Democrats frequently utilize official resources or content on social media platforms, specifically highlighting X (previously referred to as Twitter).
In order to support its argument, the complaint provided an extensive collection of evidence spanning across 91 pages. For instance, one showcased example displayed Pelosi incorporating House video footage into her campaign website.
Similarly, Omar utilized C-Span footage on her Instagram account in another instance, and Pressley was seen speaking on the House floor in a post made on X as yet another example.
“These violations are rampant and obvious, and clearly the OCE’s failure to act has encouraged continued violations. This failure has also incentivized these Members to use House proceedings for political campaigning rather than doing what is in the best interest of the country,” Kendra Arnold, Executive Director of FACT, said in the release.
“Likewise, it is also clear why these Members are doing this, it’s for a political advantage and one that is paid for by the taxpayers. The OCE has both the authority and a clear responsibility to ensure each ethics violation is dealt with swiftly. Not doing so both permits clear violations to continue and erodes the public’s trust in the OCE itself,” she said.
“Currently, numerous Members are using official House resources for political purposes and are doing so both repeatedly and publicly,” FACT wrote in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“The law quite clearly forbids this, yet a handful of Members continue to do so. The most obvious violations are Members using official government resources to campaign on their political social media accounts or using official government platforms to campaign,” the letter said.
“The failure to address this egregious practice has permitted these Members to continue committing violations to this day with impunity. Though to some it may seem like a simple thing on the surface, the Members choosing to break this law do it for a reason — it advantages them politically,” the letter of complaint said.
The complaint said legislators break the rules because there is no punishment for doing so.
“Not acting upon obvious violations not only permits them to continue but it erodes the public’s trust,” the complaint said.
“In fact, these Members’ campaign social media accounts demonstrate that they consistently use official resources for political purposes and have used numerous different types of taxpayer-funded resources for their political campaigns,” the complaint said.
“For instance, the examples previously provided to the OCE and the attached examples include every type of official resource identified above: use of official House photographs, official House floor and committee proceeding videos, official House work product and press releases, government buildings, and re-posts of official House social media accounts for political purposes,” the letter said.
