Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
The Republican Party is fundraising off the 2020 census—by pretending to conduct its own “census” that aims to dupe people into contributing.
The Republican National Committee has been sending fundraising letters billing themselves as parts of an “official 2019 congressional district census,” each containing an official-looking “document tracking code.” Though they include frequent disclosures that they are products of the RNC, and not the U.S. government, they put literal emphasis on the word “census,” underlining it throughout the letter.
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The front of the envelope that delivers the letter is stamped with an all-caps message reading “DO NOT DESTROY” and “OFFICIAL DOCUMENT.”
A copy of one such fundraising letter was shared Tuesday by a Twitter user who said his mother received it in the mail. The RNC confirmed the letter is an official fundraising mailer.
The fundraising tactic is perfectly above-board legally. “Campaign-finance law doesn’t prohibit the RNC from making misleading statements in fundraising or political mailers,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal reform programs at the Campaign Legal Center. “The only requirement is that the mailer include a disclaimer stating that who paid for it.”
The RNC’s letter does indeed include that disclaimer. But it appears designed, at least at first glance, to give the impression of a quasi-official census questionnaire, despite its sprinkling with the sort of political language that one would expect from a party fundraising solicitation.
An RNC official stressed that it fully complies with all relevant legal requirements. “The mailers receive an overwhelming positive response and we continue to send each year because it performs so well,” the official said in an emailed statement.
Democrats have sent their fair share of misleading mailers as well, many designed to look like official “surveys” gauging recipients’ political opinions, when in fact they’re simply trawling for financial contributions.
But the RNC’s “census” mailer comes as the actual 2020 census looms and makes plenty of national news headlines, not least over allegations that the Trump administration is attempting to politicize the process—and counter-allegations that it’s trying to prevent Democrats from doing so—by including a question about recipients’ citizenship status. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving that question last week.
Prior RNC fundraising letters have used similar tactics. A letter late in the 2016 cycle arrived in potential donors’ mailboxes with a red, all-caps message on the envelope reading “NOTICE OF DELINQUENCY.” The return address was listed as the “office of records” in each recipient’s state.
The letter inside was clearly labeled as a message from the RNC. But recipients called the tactic a “deceptive” effort to make partisan fundraising appeals look like unpaid bills or collections notices.
Recipients of that letter were instructed to call a Washington, D.C.-area number to rectify their financial standing with the RNC. The same number is listed on the “census” letters that went out this week. PAY DIRT called the number, and we were greeted by an automated service thanking us for calling the Republican National Committee membership line.
