Friday, January 22, 2016
Sanders Makes Greatest Use of Senate Position for Campaign
WASHINGTON—More than any other member of Congress seeking a promotion to the White House, Sen. Bernie Sanders has leveraged his official position to boost his presidential ambitions.
Mr. Sanders has routinely used his senate social media accounts to discuss his campaign themes and engage his campaign rivals, unlike the other three senators running for president. His Senate Facebook and Twitter accounts have distributed excerpts of his campaign stump speeches, news releases or debate appearances.
Members of his Senate staff have traveled with Mr. Sanders on the campaign trail and played his Democratic opponents in debate prep. And the Vermont senator routinely uses the Senate floor to deliver addresses that compare and contrast himself to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Meredith McGehee, policy director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center which advocates for vigorous enforcement of campaign finance laws and ethics rules, said that Mr. Sanders’ use of social media raises questions about whether it comports with the spirit and the letter of Senate ethics rules.
“His concern about income and wealth inequality is something that he’s been talking about for a long time,” said Mr. Briggs. “Those are certainly issues that as a senator, he is entitled to talk about.”
Until very recently, Mr. Briggs worked simultaneously for the campaign and in Mr. Sanders’s Senate office as a top communications staffer, and was paid both by taxpayers and the campaign—a practice that isn’t forbidden but that campaign experts from both sides of the aisle said is rare. Mr. Briggs said his boss followed all Senate rules regarding staff, and he has since left the Senate office to focus on the campaign full time.
In the absence of specific guidance, many lawyers and ethics experts disagree on where the precise line is between campaigning and governing—noting that many members of Congress talk about similar themes in the chambers on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail.
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