Nevadans top $350,000 for constituent mailings

WASHINGTON — The four House members from Nevada have spent more than $357,000 so far this Congress on taxpayer-funded mailings and newsletters and telephone mass meetings, forms of outreach that enable them to communicate with constituents but that also can serve as subtle advertisements for them as incumbents.

Republican Rep. Joe Heck topped the delegation with $183,001 in so-called “franked spending” in 2013 and through March of this year, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that compiled spending off public documents for the entire House. For Heck, that amounts to 25.7 cents for each of the 709,730 people who live in the 3rd Congressional District outside Las Vegas.

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus spent $123,506, or 18.3 cents per resident in the 1st District comprising greater Las Vegas. Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford spent $41,230, which is almost 6 cents per resident of the 4th District of North Las Vegas and a swath of rural counties in central Nevada.

Republican Rep. Mark Amodei spent $9,900 on mass communication, roughly a penny for each of the 687,019 resident of the sprawling 2nd District across Northern Nevada.

None of the Nevadans rank among the top spenders on taxpayer mail. Rep. Paul Cook, a freshman Republican from Yucca Valley in California, is first at $365,000 according to a spreadsheet examined by the Review-Journal.

Heck ranks 34th, after finishing third in the last Congress when his district contained slightly more than 1 million people. Since redistricting, the 3rd District has been reduced to where it still is the largest in the state but by only 19,500 more than the 4th District represented by Horsford and 22,700 more than the 1st District represented by Titus.

All told, House members have spent $26.7 million in taxpayer-funded mail so far in this Congress.

The House sets rules for the use of “franked mail,” including what they can say and not say and when large mailings can be distributed. Rules also limit the size and number of photos in newsletters sent to constituents.

Still, Dave Lieber, a watchdog columnist for the Dallas Morning News, said he has seen franked newsletters by some incumbents that “look and read more like campaign fliers than government communication.”

Instead of a postage stamp, a “franked” envelope contains the lawmaker’s signature. The congressional perk is not “free,” as the costs come out of each lawmaker’s office budget. With support from watchdog groups, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., introduced a bill last month to end the frank and require lawmakers to buy stamps in advance.

The frank also covers the costs of increasingly popular “telephone town halls” where as many as 30,000 to 40,000 constituents are invited to a mass conversation with the lawmaker and several thousand may choose to take part.

Democrats on Friday took aim at Heck as the Nevada delegation’s top spender on franked mail. His election opponent Erin Bilbray said Heck complained about his opponent’s use of the frank when he first ran for Congress.

“Now that he is in Washington he is doing exactly that and much worse,” Bilbray said. “Joe Heck is all talk and rhetoric — on the taxpayer’s dime.”

Heck swung back, saying the attack is “a feeble attempt by a weak candidate trying to generate unearned media coverage. They bring this up every cycle.”

“The fact is, I have always placed a priority on communicating with my constituents,” he said. “For less than the cost of a first-class stamp we are keeping our constituents up to date on what is going on. And we’re not sending out glossy mail pieces with pictures of me. We send letters.”

Even counting the mailings, Heck said he returned about 10 percent of his roughly $1.3 million office budget last year to the U.S. Treasury as surplus.

“I think we run a very cost-effective operation,” he said. “We are constantly applauded by constituents for staying in touch with them and being responsive to them. If the other side wants to make a big deal about the fact that I stay in touch with my constituents, great, let them.”

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at STetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.