GOP REPS PAID ANTI-GAY-MARRIAGE GROUP TO TRAIN THEIR STAFFERS
By Greater Long Beach
[EDITOR'S NOTE: RollCall.com reporter Paul Singer broke this story this morning. ]
Last spring, four Republican Party members of the House of Representatives used money from their Congressional office accounts to send five staff members to a training seminar run by a conservative Christian group in Indiana that is leading the charge for an amendment to ban gay marriage in the state.
The Indiana Family Institute is the state affiliate of the Family Research Council, which focuses its efforts on supporting heterosexual marriage while opposing gay marriage and abortion. Last year, its political action committee, Indiana Family Action, helped fund an ad attacking Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) for voting for the health care overhaul, which the ad called “the biggest expansion of abortion in decades.”
The April expenditures by the four Republican congressmen—$500 each from Larry Bucshon, Dan Burton and Todd Young, and $1,000 from Rep. Todd Rokita; that’s $2,500 for the group—is a perfectly legal use of taxpayer money, but it highlights the broad array of things members of Congress can pay for out of their office accounts. The payments also underscore the tight web of relationships members can build with favored causes without violating rules against using taxpayer money to fund political activity.
The payments to enroll staffers in the the Indiana Family Institute’s annual training course—called the Hoosier Congressional Policy Leadership Series—stand out because it is rare for Congressional offices to make direct payments to political organizations.
House rules prohibit the use of official funds for political purposes, but the House Administration Committee’s “member Handbook” allows expenditures for “ordinary and necessary expenses for Members or employees to attend conferences, seminars, briefings, professional training, and informational programs related to the official and representational duties to the district from which elected.”
Josh Gillespie, Burton’s communications director and an alumni of the Indiana Family Institute training program, points out that the training is run through IFI’s nonprofit arm—not the PAC—so “any money coming from our office is not going to any political activity.”
4 Comments
“The April expenditures by the four Republican congressmen—$500 each from Larry Bucshon, Dan Burton and Todd Young, and $1,000 from Rep. Todd Rokita; that’s $2,500 for the group—is a perfectly legal use of taxpayer money…” so enough, said on that score.
I think it might also be very informative to learn what sort of training seminars Democrat Congresspeople send their own staffers to. This article as well as the Roll Call article upon which it is based are, each, suspiciously silent on that score. I wonder why?
another disgusting violation of the wall of separation, these xtian lawmakers are treasonous bastards.
suspiciously silent on that score
I don’t think this has anything to do with the wall of separation between church and state which Jefferson discussed in his letter to the Danbury Baptists.
In sending these staffers to these training sessions, these Congresspersons are not making any laws…they are simply developing their staff members as it seems appropriate to them to develop them to do so.
As this article plainly states, these expenditures are not illegal and as I mentioned earlier, I think it might also be very informative to learn what sort of training seminars Democrat Congresspeople send their own staffers to.