The Hill newspaper reported that Congressman John Mica’s campaign has spent more than $230,000 on “meals with constituents” – potentially violating House Ethics Committee rules prohibiting the use of campaign funds for personal expenses.
Below are a few highlights from the report:
- “Since 1998, the former House Transportation Committee chairman has spent more than $230,000 on hundreds of “meals with constituents,” campaign records reveal. That includes $10,000 at restaurants hundreds of miles from home in New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Illinois, South Carolina and North Carolina.”
- “…big-dollar expenses recorded by Mica, such as a $1,500 meal with constituents on Sept. 9 at a restaurant at the Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where the Micas have a vacation home”
- “Mica has averaged roughly $12,800 a year on “meals with constituents” for the past 18 years, but that number spiked to nearly $40,000 in 2014 and $31,369 in 2013.”
- “Mica faces a tough reelection bid after the Florida Supreme Court accepted a new congressional district map that made his once safely Republican seat much more diverse and suddenly competitive.”
Read the whole report from The Hill: GOP lawmaker’s ‘meals with constituents’ draw scrutiny
