Lawmakers promote campaigns with state money as election nears

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- About two dozen state lawmakers, including House Speaker Catherine Hanaway, have spent at least $84,000 in taxpayer dollars to send informational materials to potential voters in the final four weeks before Tuesday's election.

Hanaway, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, distributed more than 50,000 fliers bearing her photographs through two suburban St. Louis newspapers, prompting criticism from her Democratic opponent, Robin Carnahan.

Lawmakers are allowed to use state money to send newsletters or similar materials to constituents.

But legislative policies prohibit them from being mailed less than three weeks before any election in which the legislator has an opponent. And those same policies limit the number of printed copies to an amount just slightly higher than the number to be mailed.

Hanaway's newsletter was distributed Oct. 22 -- just a week-and-a-half before the election -- in the Webster-Kirkwood Times and Ladue News, and it went to far more than the roughly 14,600 households in her suburban St. Louis legislative district.

Hanaway, of Warson Woods, was unavailable for comment Thursday, said her campaign manager Chuck Caisley, who also served as Hanaway's chief of staff as House speaker, the chamber's top position.

Caisley said Hanaway violated no rules, noting the policy specifically prohibits "mail" three weeks before an election, not newspaper inserts. To ensure all households in her district received a copy, the flier had to go to some homes on the delivery routes that weren't in her district, he said.

Caisley and House Clerk Stephen Davis each said Hanaway was entitled to four times the typical 14,600 copies of her newsletter, because she had not used any of her allotted three mailings in the 2004 fiscal year and had combined those with one of her allotted printings for the current 2005 fiscal year.

No policy to dictate

"It's always been assumed that you should only mail a bulk mailing to your district," Davis said. "But there's no policy that states that. So there's definitely not a policy on newspaper inserts along those lines."

House Minority Leader Rick Johnson said he was investigating Hanaway's flier as a potential violation of House policy -- both because of when it was sent and how many copies were printed. At the least, it displays "an attitude of we'll see how far we can push or bend the rules," said Johnson, D-High Ridge.

Johnson was one of 20 other House members and three senators -- all on Tuesday's ballot -- who also mailed constituent newsletters after Oct. 1. Senate rules prohibit mailings after Oct. 13, House rules after Oct. 12, and some beat those deadline by just days.

Johnson said he waited so long mainly because he wanted to include details from the legislature's Sept. 15 veto session.

Hanaway waited to distribute her newsletter so senior citizens could get the most current information about how to apply for a property tax break enacted into law, Caisley said.

But other lawmakers acknowledged trying to time the mailing of their taxpayer-funded materials as close as possible to the election.

House records show Rep. Walt Bivins, R-St. Louis, had a constituent booklet printed Aug. 31 but waited until Oct. 1 for the state to mail it.

"That was my choice," Bivins said. "For practical reasons, it seemed like probably a good idea to wait as close to the election as I could -- for that name recognition perspective."

Hanaway had requested 51,000 copies of her four-page newsletter (containing six photos of herself alongside stories of the legislature's accomplishments), but ended up receiving 53,000, Davis said. It cost the state about $530 for printing and $3,000 to distribute the fliers through the two newspapers.

The state spent an estimated $84,000 since Oct. 1 to print and mail constituent materials for 24 lawmakers who are up for election, according to records provided by the House and Senate. Numerous other lawmakers mailed materials before Oct. 1, and the state spent additional money to mail materials for lawmakers who are not on the ballot.