Schatz, Booker, Murphy Question Funding, Legality Of HHS Efforts To Promote Trumpcare And Undermine The Affordable Care Act
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SCHATZ, BOOKER, MURPHY QUESTION FUNDING, LEGALITY OF HHS EFFORTS TO PROMOTE TRUMPCARE AND UNDERMINE THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
In their letter, the senators ask Secretary Price to detail the amount of federal funding the Department spent to produce and distribute the dozens of anti-ACA videos available on the Department's official social media accounts. The senators also questioned the legality of the advertisement campaign, noting several laws that prohibit using public resources to lobby for pending legislation or for partisan political purposes.
"We are concerned that the use of appropriated funds to promote legislation pending before
A PDF copy of the letter is available at: https://www.schatz.senate.gov/download/price-letter-7-21-17.
The full text of the letter follows:
Dear Secretary Price,
We write to request information about the apparent use of taxpayer dollars by the
HHS maintains several official social media accounts that have published anti-ACA content in recent months, including on Twitter (@HHSGov, @SecPriceMD, and @HHSMedia) and on the official HHS Facebook account (www.Facebook.com/HHS). These accounts have posted and reposted content that promotes repealing the ACA and have repeatedly used the partisan political slogan of #RepealAndReplace (Appendix 1), which represents a partisan legislative strategy in opposition to the ACA. Indeed, throughout the period of time that HHS has posted this content, the
These official HHS accounts have also shared videos of testimonials by individuals who oppose the ACA (Appendix 2). For example, the @SecPriceMD account posted multiple video testimonials through ten tweets regarding the ACA on
Other graphics posted on HHS' social media accounts include an official "HHS.gov" or "CMSGov" logo accompanying anti-ACA propaganda (Appendix 3). Some of these posts explicitly state that they used taxpayer funds. For example, on
Other images using the HHS.gov logo are linked to conservative political organizations that directly urge the public to contact members of
These uses of social media raise questions about who produced the videos, where the production took place, and what government resources were used to produce them.
Under the
No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of
The Anti-Lobbying Act precludes federal employees from participating in "substantial grass roots" lobbying campaigns designed to encourage the public to contact members of
Furthermore, Section 503(a) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 115-13) bans the use of federal funds to publish electronic communications that support pending legislation. Given
We therefore request the following information about these advertising and public relations activities so that we can assess the agency's compliance with the law, specifically the Anti-Lobbying Act, the Hatch Act, Section 503(a) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, and other applicable laws and regulations. Please provide the answers to the questions below by
1. What was your fiscal year 2017 advertising and public relations budget, and what activities and expenditures in HHS fall under this definition?
a. What account does HHS' social media activities fall into?
b. Which employees have advertising or public relations responsibilities?
2. Please provide the total amount of spending on advertising and public relations by your agency from the day you took office, including for social media, video development and promotion, and graphic design. Please provide information on how those funds were spent, including whether the funds were awarded to outside contracts or spent in-house. Please also provide an accounting of HHS employee time devoted to these activities.
3. What appropriations request did you make to
4. From
a. How was this campaign funded" How much did it cost and what was the source of those funds?
b. Who approved the making of these videos?
c. How much oversight did you have in their content and creation?
d. Who created the videos and where were they created?
e. Were any HHS funds used to promote or disseminate these videos" If so, please provide a complete breakdown of all such expenditures.
f. Under what authority did HHS create these advertisements?
5. In addition to statutory prohibitions against such activities, HHS's ethics rules state that "[a]n employee shall not, either directly or indirectly, use appropriated funds to influence, or attempt to influence, a Member of
6. What actions will be taken to ensure that all HHS spending follows the law and is consistent the agency's appropriations?
Sincerely,
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