I live in the Illinois Tenth Congressional District. My congressman, Mark Kirk, announced his bid for the U.S. Senate. He chose as his theme, ethics. Kirk wants to clean up Illinois government. So, what does he do first?
He sends out a glossy, high quality paper, full color, 6 page mailer. It's positively beautiful. The thing is that on the back, it says who paid for it. We did.
He used his franking privilege to send it out. Now, I know that under House rules he can do that. It's not 90 days prior to the election. It just seems to me that someone running on ethics should watch what he's doing on the taxpayer's dime.
It's ironic that Kirk is so concerned about spending that he says we cannot afford health care reform, but he went for the best paper and color for his mailer. The most ironic part of all this is that one of his front page stories is his quest to ban pay to play politics in Washington and Springfield. He wants to exchange it for the taxpayers pay, he plays.