Stutzman Repays Campaign for Family Trip

UPDATE: INDIANAPOLIS  — A spokesman for U.S. Senate candidate Marlin Stutzman says the Republican Indiana congressman repaid his campaign fund last week for expenses covering a family trip to California last summer.

Campaign manager Josh Kelley tells the Associated Press an attorney told Stutzman at the time of the trip that charging over $3,000 to the campaign account for airfare and a van rental was acceptable because the family attended a number of political functions.

Kelley says Stutzman reimbursed his campaign fund last week after The Associated Press asked questions about the trip. The trip included a visit to the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, and Stutzman's wife described it on her Facebook page as a "family vacation."

Federal Election Commission guidelines forbid using campaign funds for personal expenses.

Stutzman is a tea party-backed congressman first elected in 2010.

ORIGINAL STORY:

INDIANAPOLIS  — A Facebook page belonging to the wife of an Indiana congressman touted the family's visit to the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, with photos showing the two children by the conservative icon's grave and the couple in front of a "humble" wooden table where Reagan signed a massive tax cut.

Although a caption on one of the photos describes the trip as a "family vacation," documents obtained by The Associated Press show that Rep. Marlin Stutzman's Senate campaign paid more than $2,000 for the four airline tickets to Los Angeles and covered expenses for a van rental and Hilton hotel room recorded during the August trip. Federal Election Commission guidelines forbid the use of an official campaign fund for personal expenses.

When asked by the AP for details about the trip, campaign manager Josh Kelley said "it is irresponsible to imply that Marlin Stutzman has not always done his best to be in compliance with all FEC rules and regulations." The pictures from the Reagan library were taken down several days after the AP inquired.

The California visit represents just a small part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in flights, vehicle charges, meals and hotel stays Stutzman's campaign fund has spent since the tea party-backed Republican went to Washington in 2010 on a pledge to oppose special interests, the AP's review found.

The fund has spent over $300,000 on such charges, roughly three times more than Rep. Todd Young, Stutzman's GOP Senate rival in the May 3 primary who joined the House about the same time.

During one eight-month period in 2015, Stutzman used his campaign fund and congressional allowance to reimburse himself $13,100 for mileage driven on a personal vehicle — the equivalent of about 40 roundtrips from his hometown of Howe in northern Indiana to the state's southern border touching Louisville, Kentucky. The expenses covered a period when Stutzman was casting votes in Congress and his campaign was billing for dozens of airline tickets.

Stutzman's campaign declined to respond to questions from the AP about his spending habits, including whether the mileage was largely for in-state trips or travel to and from Washington. Members of Congress are allowed to use their office allowance to pay for travel back to their districts, but the roughly nine-hour drive from Capitol Hill to Howe is about 570 miles, or $308 in one-way mileage at the congressional rate. Traveling by plane is much faster and often a fraction of the cost.

The records didn't indicate what vehicle or vehicles racked up the mileage, including who owned them. In late 2012, Stutzman's campaign bought a vehicle with a $10,000 down payment. By the time it was paid off in June 2015, the running tab surpassed $60,000 for automobile-related expenses, including car payments, insurance, registration and repairs.

Since 2010, Stutzman has billed his campaign for $129,872 in airfare and hotels — including one charge to the Ritz Carlton, compared to $26,378 for Young. Stutzman also paid out more than $50,000 for food and drink, including over $24,000 to the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican invite-only establishment that boasts the "nation's most influential people" as its members.

Stutzman presents himself as a small-town farmer with a cure for the "Potomac fever" he says is gripping a national political establishment that has refused to rein in government spending at taxpayers' expense.

Regarding the California trip, Michael Toner, who was chairman of the FEC under President George W. Bush, said family vacations can't be charged to a campaign account. "Even if you do some campaign activities on your trip, you can't have the campaign pay for the personal time," he said.

Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says Stutzman's spending habits trend high, but are not unheard of for a congressman.

"It sounds high, but it's not completely out of the norm for members of Congress," Libowitz said. "It certainly follows that general pattern of getting to Washington and then starting to use campaign funds to live a more lavish lifestyle than before. Members of Congress tend to live a little higher on the hog."

But Paul Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne who is now a public affairs professor at Indiana University, says Stutzman's campaign fund use is at odds with his public image.

"The perception issue could be a damaging one," said Helmke, who in 1998 won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate but lost in the general election to former Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh. "For someone who's held himself out as running against the establishment, from small town Indiana, the image of fancy hotels and steakhouses doesn't fit."

During a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Stutzman took a swipe at the political establishment.

"Growing up on a farm, I never thought that the lessons of cleaning cow manure out of a cow pen would be so useful in my life," he said. "But serving in Congress, I'm finding plenty of bull."