Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar wants everyone to know what she’s doing in District 27. She says she is working to reduce the cost of living for families, support small business owners, create new jobs, make affordable housing more accessible and cut unnecessary government expenses.
Well, not all unnecessary government expenses.
Because the four mailers that arrived back to back in voters’ homes in recent weeks to tout Salazar’s supposed successes in Washington D.C. were “paid for by office funds authorized by the House of Representatives,” it says right under the return address. That means taxpayers paid for it.
And these arrived just as she starts to campaign for re-election in District 27.
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There is apparently no law broken here. Congress members get a budget, called a Member Representative Allowance (MRA), which includes funding for staffing, expenses and mail. Federal law also requires the reporting of “unsolicited mailings of substantially identical content to 500 or more persons” for each member per quarter.
It’s a loophole that Salazar is using to send what clearly look like campaign mailers. It could be seen as an abuse.
It’s not like she doesn’t have the available funds in her campaign account. According to the Federal Elections Commission, Salazar still had $1.2 million in hand of the $1.8 million she had raised as of March 31.
Maybe she doesn’t want to waste her own money. Because nobody believes her anymore anyway.
After CBS4’s Jim Defede called her out in January on taking credit for securing federal funding for local projects that he actually voted against, voters can’t have a lot of confidence in anything Salazar boasts. But she keeps doing it.
The mailers mention $2.5 million to expand healthcare for seniors and families, $8 million for flooding mitigation along the Miami River and in Little Havana and $3.75 million for police initiatives, for example. All those were parts of the bipartisan critical infrastructure bill that she voted against.
So not only does Maria Elvira Salazar take credit for things she tried to kill, but she does it with taxpayer money.
Maria Elvira Salazar sends campaign mailers from congressional office added by Ladra on
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