Lawmaker or lawbreaker? Peltola sends out campaign-style letters on taxpayers’ dime

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Mary Peltola's campaign headquarters in Fairbanks offers free beer.

Rep. Mary Peltola, struggling to get reelected in a red state that will likely vote for Donald Trump for president, has run through most of her $12 million in campaign cash by offering free beer and free “feasts” for her supporters. The millions being spent by Democrat political action committees and unions has her campaign overall in the tens of millions of dollars — one of the richest in the country.

But it hasn’t been enough.

Now, she is using her official congressional stationary to make her case, a likely violation — or at least a skirting — of federal law. Members of Congress are prohibited from sending mass mailings to constituents within 60 days of an election.

“A Member may not send any unsolicited mass mailing or mass communication less than 60 days immediately before the date of any primary or general election (whether regular, special or runoff) in which the Member is a candidate for public office,” the law reads.

The law specifies that no more than 499 letters may go out in any mailing during the two months prior to an election. Peltola is scamming the law by sending out mass mailers that all start out the same, but then have a different message.

“We do quite a few things better in Alaska than do our friends in the Lower 48,” she writes to all of the recipients. Then, to some constituents, she boasts about sponsoring funding for the Women, Infants, and Children food program. To others, she takes credit for funding of a new icebreaker. Another group got a message about fisheries.

All the letters are essentially the same, and she may have limited each to 499 in order to make it within the technically “legal” threshold that allowed her to send the bill to taxpayers. It’s a scam.

One constituent was having none of it. The person scribbled on the letter that she voted for Nick Begich, and posted it on social media:

Peltola has had one of the most well-funded campaigns for reelection in Alaska history. And yet, since polls have rated her the most vulnerable incumbent Democrat in the House, she is using the taxpayer money to send out one last “voter touch” letter to Alaskans to shore up her support.

Peltola has used taxpayer resources earlier in this campaign season — by staging campaign events at publicly funded schools, in violation of Alaska statute. Must Read Alaska has written about her use of state-funded schools in North Pole and Fort Yukon for partisan political events.

And she constantly lies about her political opponent by saying there won’t be any fish left in Alaska if Nick Begich is elected, and that all the children will leave if Begich is elected. It’s a violation of state law to lie about another candidate.

Peltola also may have broken federal law by using her sons, while they were in uniform and picturing them on active duty for the federal government, in her ads.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Desperate times apparently make Mary use desperate (illegal) measures. If she does this for herself, that’s how she will represent us. Keep it up Alaska: don’t be complacent. Get out to vote and make sure your like minded friends get to the polls!

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