Description

I support Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to place each Member’s expense account on the internet. Currently, these records are printed in the Clerk of the House reports. Congressional offices are appropriated a certain amount of money each year to operate their offices depending in part on that District’s distance from Washington, D.C. The 12th District amount for 2009 is $1.45 million. This money has to pay for all expenses including staff salaries, office rent, equipment, telephone bills, supplies, mailings, newsletters and travel between Michigan and D.C. There are rules as to what may be spent on official activities and each mailing or email to an audience larger than 500 people must be approved by the bi-partisan Congressional Standards Mailing Franking Commission under the Committee on House Administration..

Until the U.S. House of Representatives has an online system in place, I have asked my office to copy the most recent Clerk of the House report and make it available here