Army of Mumpower Dislikes Congressional Perks!
ByAsheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower had this to say in response to a 2-sided, four-color, 8 1/2″ X 11″ constituent mailer sent out by Congressman Heath Shuler promoting his illegal immigration bill, the SAVE Act:
Mumpower said the mailing is a “slick incumbent re-election package masquerading as constituent information.â€
“I think the Congressman should be ashamed to be spending tax dollars in this way,†Mumpower said.
He said he opposes the mailing privileges of congressman and vowed not to use the practice if elected. “It’s too ripe for abuse,†Mumpower said.
On the other hand, this is what Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower had to say about a mailer that was sent to 11th District residents in 2006 by disgraced former Congressman Charles Taylor that unfolded to a whopping 12″ X 34″, printed on two sides, trumpeting all of the appropriations money that he was bringing home to the district:
[insert sound of crickets chirping here]
Actually, after extensive searching we couldn’t find a single thing that Mumpower had to say, be it negative or positive, regarding Ol’ Lumpy’s use of the so-called franking privilege. Not one thing. But then, to be fair, Teh Mump wasn’t running for Congress in 2006 either, so…
Anyway, here’s to Hot Carl for his principled stances. We suspect that if he had a chance in hell of actually winning in November, that if he actually wasn’t doing this as a low-budget stunt to get his name out there for a possible future run for Mayor of Asheville, that he’d turn down every other perk such as travel to and from DC, haircuts, and shined shoes. Good luck with that.
4 Comments
February 20th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I think they ought to do away with franking altogether. So I guess I’m in the Army of Mump for a moment.
Use campaign funds to campaign, people. How is that Blue Doggity, Heath? How did you PAYGO it?
It’s an old, corrupt practice that keeps incumbents at an unfair advantage. I didn’t like it when Taylor did it:
http://scrutinyhooligans.blogspot.com/2006/08/charles-taylors-frankingstein.html
And I don’t like it when Shuler does it.
As a side not, Carl also plans to prevent federal tax dollars from returning to our district in the form of earmarks. Some earmarks Shuler’s got in his short term include a wad of cash for the V.A., small business monies, the down payment for the settlement of the road to nowhere.
Carl doesn’t want to se earmarks for the V.A., for small business, or for settling a decades-old dispute. He’s a paleoconservative who’d get in arguments with his principled self over whether shaking more than three times is immoral.
Spence Campbell, however, has all the flexibility that Mumpower lacks. Incapable of taking a firm position on anything, Campbell is poised to take the nomination for the Republicans. Carl will fume. John Armor will sigh, and Spence will lose magnificently to Shuler.
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:01 am
In the day and age of blogs, RSS feeds and, yes, e-
Carlmail, the franking privilege does seem to be archaic and unnecessary. If Mumpower truly believes that by eliminating this and possibly every other perk that Every. Single. Representative. Uses., that he’s going to accomplish more than getting on his trusty steed Rocinante and begin his vicious windmill attack, then I say that’s great.Maybe he can convince Campbell to pledge to eliminate franking. Or even shoe shining. Who gives a crap how your shoes look on C-SPAN, right?
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February 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Informative post Arratik as I was not familiar with the practice of Franking. After looking up the term, it was interesting to learn that the phrase franking is derived from the Latin word “francus” meaning free while also being a play on Ben Franklin’s last name, who was an early US Postmaster General.
From what I’ve read, the establishement of the privilege was founded with good intentions and was designed to keep constituents informed of an elected officials activities.
Unfortuneately, as in many things political these days, the practice seems to be plagued with corruption and a lack of integrity. When used correctly, I think the practice still serves a useful purpose for communicating with constituents, especially for those who don’t have access to the internet. From a 2003 Census Bureau report, 62% of US households had computers and 54% of households had internet access.
As my daughter has learned in school, integrity is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. Having the authority to do something doesn’t mean doing it is right.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I still have a collection of Charlie’s elaborate, election-year “frankingstein” mailers going back two cycles, including the one he sent around to churches for friendly pastors to pass out on Sundays, and the stacks they passed out at his WNC State fair booths in even-numbered years.
Smaller, quarterly tri-folds in B&W were at least defensible. Lots of local older folks still don’t do Web, and complain of being left out by email-only communications.
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