CAMPAIGN/GOP: “Congressional leaders, shaken by last month’s shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice and a spike in threats to their members, want to be able to use campaign funds to tighten lawmakers’ home security.
The Federal Election Commission, after some debate, said on Thursday that given the threats, it would approve that use, so long as the improvements were ‘nonstructural.’
The commission unanimously authorized the use of campaign funds to pay for only the installation or upgrade, and the monitoring costs, of cameras, sensors, distress devices and similar security devices in and around lawmakers’ residences. Lawmakers will be required to report those expenses to the commission, but it did not set a cap on how much a lawmaker could spend on the security systems.
The commission had previously approved the use of campaign funds for security systems in a few cases, and then only where they said specific, credible threats warranted the expense. But after a gunman opened fire on the baseball team last month as it practiced in nearby Alexandria, Va., the House sergeant-at-arms wrote to the commission requesting it extend the ruling broadly.”
-Nicholas Fandos, “Lawmakers Can Use Campaign Funds for Home Security, F.E.C. Says,” The New York Times online, July 13, 2017