Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2005
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - July 12, 2004)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 707 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4755.
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Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me this time, Mr. Chairman.
I rise to deal with one aspect of this bill, and that is that it does not impose, as I would like it to, a $25,000 limit on the amount of postage spent by any one committee in any one year. That would be $50,000 a Congress or $25,000 as an annual limit.
After all, in the 107th Congress, encompassing 2002 and 2001, the average amount spent by the highest-spending committee was $6,807. In fact, in looking at the entire history of this House, I cannot find an example where any committee prior to the 108th Congress ever needed to spend more than $10,000 on postage.
A $25,000 limit seems like it provides plenty of room, particularly for a country that faces the kinds of fiscal problems that we face. And yet, why would I even think it necessary in a House where no committee had until the 108th Congress spent even $10,000 on postage, why would I think it necessary to come to this floor to seek a $25,000 annual limit?
The reason is that one committee, and this could be the opening of Pandora's box, decided in the 108th Congress to engage in a program of mass mailings in selected Members' districts.
That committee, in the 107th Congress, spent an average of $2,483, that is less than $2,500 on postage. But in the 108th Congress, they came before the Committee on House Administration and asked for $250,000 for postage for 1 year, and in fact asked for $.5 million on postage for the 2 years making up the 108th Congress.
So think of this. This is a 4,445 percent increase over what that same committee had requested for the prior Congress.
But if that does not bother the fiscal conservatives in this room, reflect that it was a 9,968 percent increase over what that committee actually spent in the prior Congress.
Now, in fact, the Committee on House Administration did not provide for this one authorizing committee to have $.5 million for postage, but they did provide $50,000 for 2003 and another $50,000 for 2004. And this committee in fact spent $49,587 on postage just in one invoice in December 2003. And, in fact, in order to have something to mail for $49,000 in postage, they spent $40,000 printing the material that was mailed, just to send out material into a very few Members' districts.
Now, the affected Members did not, to my knowledge, have any objection to the contents. But mark my words, this is the beginning. If we pass this legislative approps bill with no limits, then this one authorizing committee may come and ask for $.5 million on postage for the 109th Congress. They may ask for $2 million or $3 million in postage. Other committees may get in on the deal, and then we may have a circumstance where the Chair of each committee has a multi-million dollar postage slush fund to do mailings in the different Members' districts.
Now, how is this different for the Member communications that we are all aware of? Because we all mail into our own districts newsletters, et cetera. Well, first, each Member gets a limited MRA. In contrast, the amount that could be provided under this leg approps bill for a single committee to do mass mailings is unlimited.
Secondly, and I think this is the most important difference, every mailing says published and mailed and printed at government expense, so that the recipients of the mailing can hold the author accountable. If I am sending out useless mailings to my constituents, they can circle that line and remember it when the ballot box is in play.
In contrast, if a Chair mails into my district or mails into another Member's district, and the recipients of that mailing think that it is useless, that it is highly political, that it is propaganda, that it is on a subject they are not interested in, what recourse do they have?
I guess they could pick up and move to the district of the Chair who sent out the mailing. But assuming they are unwilling to move from one part of the country to the other, they have no recourse. So once we have Chairs sending out mailings, these mailings have no check on them. There is no accountability, and there is no way for the recipients to register their belief that the mailing is useless.
In addition, MRA funds are distributed equally to Members regardless of their political party. But if we see $.5 million appropriated by this bill allocated to a particular chairman to do mass mailings into Members' districts, that will be entirely money for one party and zero for Members of the other party.
Now, I want to stress my proposal here is bipartisan. In fact, it is designed to affect Democratic chairmen. That is to say, it affects the 2005 fiscal year, when I hope and expect Democratic Chairs will be the ones that will be able to do these mass mailings. But I do not care whether it is Democrats or Republicans. We should not have mass mailings going out by Chairs. That is why I would like to enter into the RECORD a letter from the National Taxpayers Union and another from Citizens Against Government Waste.
Each of them says that we ought to limit to $25,000 a year as a first step the amount spent on postage by any committee. This marks the first time that any legislative proposal of mine has been formally endorsed by the National Taxpayers Union and by Citizens Against Government Waste.
I know that people will want to come to this floor and reflexively vote against any motion to recommit, at least members of the majority, but your vote determines whether you endorse opening Pandora's box to unlimited mailings.
NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNION,
Alexandria, VA, July 12, 2004.
Hon. BRAD SHERMAN,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
DEAR CONGRESSMAN SHERMAN: On behalf of the 350,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), I am responding to your request for NTU's views on a proposal to limit each Committee's expenditure on postage to the sum of no more than $25,000 per year.
Even as overall postage and printing expenditures have declined from the $100 million-plus levels once seen in Congress 15 years ago, franking remains a source of fiscal and political interest to NTU. The already-generous limits governing the use of postage by House Members' personal offices were lifted in 1999, while new computer technologies have allowed lawmakers to maximize the impact of their mailings in ways that were not feasible as recently as ten years ago. Today, it is still possible for an incumbent House Member to spend as much on franking in a year as a challenger spends on his or her entire campaign. Rules regarding the content and proximity of mailings to elections only modestly offset this tremendous political advantage.
During our 15-year campaign on behalf of franking reform, NTU has focused on Member offices because they are the primary source of unsolicited mass mailings and associated expenditures. We were thus surprised to learn of a single Committee's FY 2005 postage request for $250,000 in the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill.
NTU is greatly concerned over the prospect of any Committee in Congress receiving postage fundings in these amounts, as it would mark a significant expansion of the franking privilege that had traditionally been utilized in large part by Member offices. Such concern is irrespective of the immediate policy issue at hand or the parties involved. If the House sets a budget precedent now, taxpayers will very shortly face the unwelcome prospect of tens of millions in additional franking expenditures in future Congresses. Equally, important Americans would be forced to contend with a new set of issues affecting the balance of the political process.
Years of efforts from groups like NTU and reformers within Congress have yielded an improved, yet imperfect, franking disclosure process. Despite instances of poor recordkeeping, inadequate disclosure, and overly-permissive rules, today constituents at least have limited access to basic franking information-giving them a chance to hold House Members politically accountable for the unsolicited mass mailings they send into their districts at taxpayer expense. Allowing such a practice at the Committee level, where ties between Members and constituents are less direct, would undermine even this limited progress.
It is especially galling that Congress would even consider an additional taxpayer-financed expansion of the franking privilege under the current fiscal and political circumstances. Amidst FY 2005 budget deficit estimates approaching $400 billion, and a campaign finance law that further hamstrings political challengers, allowing such a huge postage funding request for any Committee will further reinforce Congress's reputation as an institution incapable of self-restraint.
Given the historical patterns of Committee expenditures, a $25,000 annual limit on postage for each Committee is more than adequate for any legitimate communication needs. Seemingly minor budget requests such as the one before Congress now can have major consequences for taxpayers in the not-too-distant future. For this reason alone, the House of Representatives can and should restrict Committee postage expenditures-and a $25,000 annual limit is a reasonable first step.
Please feel free to contact me should you have an additional questions regarding our position.
Sincerely,
Pete Sepp,
Vice President for Communications.
COUNCIL FOR CITIZENS
AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE,
July 12, 2004.
Representative BRAD SHERMAN,
House of Representatives, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC.
DEAR REPRESENTATIVE SHERMAN: The more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste would like to express their appreciation for your cost-saving effort to limit each Committee to spending $25,000 a year on postage.
Sincerely,
Thomas Schatz,
President.
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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, just to quickly respond to the gentleman from Georgia who argues that these mass mailings by committees are justified.
If we do not have a limit, they will grow. What was a $500,000 request this time may be a $1 million request or a $2 million request for the 109th Congress. Never before the 108th Congress has any committee ever needed more than $10,000.
The idea of having a field hearing as a reason to mail out a districtwide mailing, or several districtwide mailings, is relatively absurd. If the field hearing is really of interest, the press will publicize that field hearing; and people will come if they are interested. A field hearing has never in the history of this House up until this Congress been used as an excuse for mass propaganda into a Member's district; and if the gentleman thinks it should be, that is a revolutionary change. It is not one I would like to see in the 109th Congress.