Electronic Outreach Tests House Rules

House members are spending millions in taxpayer funds on email and other electronic outreach to voters, often in ways that avoid their traditional rules on constituent communications. During the nine months ended March 31, which included the run-up to the last election, House members spent about $3.5 million from their office accounts on electronic outreach, according to a Wall Street Journal review of expense records. Congressional rules bar lawmakers from using their free-mail privilege -- known as franking -- to send mass mailings through the U.S. Postal Service in the 90 days before an election. One goal of those limits is to curtail the advantage of incumbency and to discourage entrenched lawmakers from driving up taxpayer costs in a flurry of pre-election appeals to potential voters. But rules for email, congressional Web sites and social-media tools are far less restrictive, and in some cases nonexistent. Some rules regarding online communications exist in the House handbook. It says, for instance, that content of electronic outreach should abide by the strict rules governing franked mail. But unlike the franking rules, the handbook regulations are only guidelines, and members' online communications sometimes stray from them. For example, many lawmakers post self-promoting biographies on their official Web sites, although the franking rules prohibit mailing such materials.