Congressional franking mailing privilege favors incumbents at taxpayer expense

When I covered my first congressional race 30 years ago, the incumbent mailed out surveys and newsletters to constituents at taxpayers’ expense. But the mailings at least looked as if they were related to official duties. They were drab and issue-oriented.

Flash forward to today, and mailings sent under the free congressional franking privilege by some incumbents often look and read more like campaign fliers than government communication.

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A campaign brochure? Yet paid for with taxpayer money.

But there’s one big difference between a campaign mailing and a Capitol one. In the Capitol version, in the upper right-hand corner, where a stamp or postal permit number usually would be required, instead appears the signature of the member of Congress. This means the letter is mailed at taxpayers’ expense. Taxpayers pick up the cost of production and printing, too.

Not all members of Congress use the franking privilege as much as they could. In North Texas, for example, three members spent small amounts, according to a study of congressional office spending by the Sunlight Foundation:

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, spent about $25,000 last year on mass mailings to his 6th Congressional District. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, spent $8,000 in the 12th District. And Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, spent $10,000. Some, like Granger, send a steady stream of e-mails to constituents instead.

Among House members from North Texas, the most money was spent last year by Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell, who asked taxpayers to pay $122,000 in mailing costs. Almost half of that came in the final three months of 2011 after Marchant learned that he would have an opponent in the Republican primary, now set for May 29, 2012.

Congressman Kenny Marchant ducked phone calls

The taxpayer-funded mass mailings continued until the legal cutoff date 90 days before a primary.

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His opponent, former TV news reporter and small-business owner Grant Stinchfield, said he was stung by them. “The bottom line is the system is rigged for incumbents,” Stinchfield said. “When they’re allowed to send out all that mail on your dime, you and I are the ones that ultimately lose.”

There’s nothing illegal about this.

Congress sets the rules, and in the House, congressional staffers review each mailing to make sure regulations are obeyed. But in the mind of some congressional reformers, the bar for approval has slipped. And nobody disputes that some members of both parties flout the rules.

“The franking privilege is an abuse that is well-protected in Congress, even with the rules that regulate it,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen in Washington, D.C.

The Watchdog tried last to interview Marchant, his congressional press secretary, his campaign staff and his political consultant, Bryan Eppstein. But no one would talk to me.

Bryan Eppstein

I looked at eight mailings sent by Marchant’s Capitol office since October. Taken as a whole, the mailings are targeted specifically at the concerns of veterans and seniors.

One flier asks, “Are you a senior having trouble with Medicare or Social Security? Are you a veteran trying to attain earned benefits?”

A December mailing begins, “Looking Out for Texas Seniors.”

An October mailing starts, “Congressman Kenny Marchant invites you to Veterans Fair 2011.”

Other mailers touch on hot-button issues such as illegal immigration and the economy. A December mailer called “Lower Taxes/Less Spending/More Jobs” is six pages and includes three pictures of Marchant, one of Ronald Reagan and a survey at the end. As required, each of Marchant’s mailings carries this small-print message: “PUBLIC DOCUMENT/OFFICIAL BUSINESS. This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

Then, in language not required, several of his mailings add: “It was designed by the office of Congressman Marchant and printed at a local business in the great state of Texas.”

Members of Congress who abuse the franking privilege are forced to pay for the mailings out of their own personal funds, said a spokeswoman for the Committee on House Administration.

She said she couldn’t recall the last time that happened. Because committee staffers vet mailings in a “bipartisan process,” she said, violations are rare. They are sometimes found if complaints are filed. Stinchfield hasn’t filed one.

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Grant Stinchfield challenging incumbent

Jim Riddlesperger, a political science professor at Texas Christian University, said the debate over franking abuses has gone on too long: “We don’t need the franking privilege anymore. You can communicate with as many people as you want for free on the Internet.”

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Jim Riddlesperger

Note: Marchant’s District 24 includes parts of Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Irving, Carrollton, Coppell, Hebron, Addison, Farmers Branch and northwest Dallas.

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Watchdog Nation tracks outdoor mailbox thefts in North Texas

In early October 2010, a mailbox outside the Riverside postal station on the 400 block of North Retta Street, Fort Worth, Texas was broken into.

Watchdog Nation citizen LuAnn Hoppe reported the incident to us, and we verified it with Fort Worth police. Several pieces of mail were found in a large box around the corner. Some of the removed mail was returned, police say.


Don't use these blue collection mailboxes outside post offices. They are too easy to steal from.


Dave Lieber’s Watchdog column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — and WatchdogNation.com — are the only forums revealing mailbox break-ins in North Texas to the public.

Neither the post office nor the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are willing to release details. Many break-ins are not even reported to city police. I count on you to be our eyes and ears. So if you learn of any break-ins, please report them by e-mail to this address: watchdog@star-telegram.com. Or use the Contact Us form on WatchdogNation.com.

Earlier this year, Dave Lieber filed a federal open-records request and learned that more than 60 mailboxes outside post offices in Tarrant County and nearby cities were broken into last year.

So when you hear about a break-in (and they usually happen before the holidays when thieves are looking for gift cards, cash and checks), let us know. And please don’t mail letters in public mailboxes anymore. Go inside the post office and use those slots. Or give them to a carrier. Or place them in home mailbox if the mailbox is locked. If you have an outdoor mailbox that is unlocked, and you don’t fetch your mail the second the postal carrier leaves, then consider getting one of those locking mailboxes at any hardware store.

This is the easiest way for you to stop identity theft, too.

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Read below Watchdog Nation’s previous reports about mailbox theft and our federal Freedom of Information Act request.

Watchdog Nation exposes mailbox bandit’s crime spree

Watchdog Nation Alert: Don’t use the outdoor mailboxes at post office anymore

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

Dave Lieber book that won two national awards for social change.

Watchdog Nation Alert: Don’t use the outdoor mailboxes at post offices anymore


The station manager at the post office told me there was no theft. The box went in for maintenance. I offered to show him the police report and pulled out my camera and showed him this photo of the pry marks I took outside his station moments before.

The station manager at the post office told me there was no theft. The box went in for maintenance. I offered to show him the police report and pulled out my camera and showed him this photo of the pry marks I took outside his station moments before.


Watchdog Nation warns you: Stop using those big blue collection boxes outside post offices — the ones often paired with drive-through lanes.

Mail theft from these collection boxes is common these days.

And the worst part?

If your mailing is stolen from one of these mailboxes, you may never know about it. The United States Postal Service nor its Inspections Service division do not always announce it. Nor do the local police.

As I first reported in the Dave Lieber column in the January 17, 2010 Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I discovered two nearby cities that handled recent mailbox thefts completely differently.

Both were hit by mail bandits on a Saturday night who used a crowbar or similar tool to pry open the mailboxes and steal the mail.

In Keller, Texas, the crime was handled very publicly. Residents were notified by Keller police on their Web site. And there was a news story in the Keller Citizen which reported the theft. Residents were asked to file a report if they believe their mail was stolen.

Several have done so, and Keller police say they now have leads.

It’s a different story in Haltom City, Texas, where police say a Jan. 3 incident was never reported as a theft by the post office. Because of that, the case is not listed as a mail theft (postal authorities can’t prove any mail was stolen) but as a criminal-mischief case.

Haltom City police say the case is already listed as inactive.


Don't use these mailboxes anymore. Mail gets stolen from them, and authorities might not tell you.

Don't use these mailboxes anymore. Mail gets stolen from them, and authorities might not tell you.


The secrecy behind the Haltom City break-in angers town resident Dee Taylor. She has been trying for two weeks to learn whether a letter she mailed hours before the break-in was stolen. No one will tell her.

Taylor knows about the theft because her husband, Delbert Cantrell, discovered the break-in when he went to mail a bill that Sunday morning. He found the box wide-open and empty.

Since then, Taylor has questioned postal employees about the incident, but no one will tell her anything, she says.

Taylor alerted Watchdog Nation to the unpublicized Haltom City mailbox break-in. Previously, I saw the police tape at the crime scene of the compromised Keller collection box. (Watchdog Nation uses that postal address.) So I knew something was up.

I called the U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service, which is responsible for investigating mail theft. A postal inspector told me there have been other box break-ins outside area post offices. But nobody will tell me where and when those incidents occurred.

That means that residents elsewhere who mailed letters, bills or gifts might be theft victims and would never know.

In Haltom City, after Cantrell noticed the emptied box, the couple later saw that the box had been removed. When it was returned, it had a front grille at the entry point that makes it harder to pull mail back out through the slot. But pry marks were still visible on the back.

I visited the Haltom City post office and spoke with Station Manager Carlos Avelar. Taylor had previously questioned him without success.

“I got a call about the break-in Sunday,” I said.

“It was not a break-in,” Avelar said.

“What was it?” I asked.

“It was taken in for maintenance.”

I pulled out my camera and showed him a photo, taken minutes before, of what looked like crowbar marks.

He referred me to a higher-up, who told me she could not comment.

But after I told the postal inspector about the visible damage, the box was removed a second time and repaired again.

A Haltom City police report says police visited the post office to answer an alarm at 7:20 a.m. that Sunday. They found nothing amiss.

They returned an hour later after someone called about a box break-in. The outdoor box was open. They found two letters inside, which they carried into the post office and dropped in an inside slot.

“Mail may have been removed from the box, but I was unable to tell at this time,” officer R.A. Beshirs wrote. “It appeared that the perpetrator(s) used some type of unknown pry device to make the entry into the box.”

Haltom City police Sgt. Eric Peters said: “The case is inactive right now because we haven’t had anybody call us and tell us something was stolen, and we have no suspects in the case.

“Until we know for sure that there was mail taken out of there, our hands are pretty tied.”

He said those who believe that their mail was stolen from the Haltom City post office box around Jan. 2 or 3 should report it to police.

In Keller, where the public was notified and complaints came in, police Lt. Brenda Slovak called the theft “a big deal.”

“That was a lot of mail. That’s a lot of people’s bills that aren’t getting paid,” she said. “The economy’s bad enough without them having to make a late payment or pay extra fines or fees.”

Fort Worth Postal Inspector Tim Vasquez said he regretted that he couldn’t release any more information about mailboxes that were hit.

“While I do agree that disclosure is a good idea for the citizens, we have to watch that we don’t do anything to jeopardize the investigation. So we’re not going to give out any of the locations.”

Let me know of any mail thefts from area post office boxes. Postal authorities won’t share the information, but after verifying your tip with police and postal officials, I’ll share.

How else will you know to check whether your mail was stolen?


Reporting mail theft


-Call your local police department.

-Call the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455 and ask to speak to a division mail theft inspector for your geographic area.

-Or visit postalinspectors.uspis.gov

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber