Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Michigan U. S. House District 13) has a lot of ads on TV and YouTube boasting about how he has brought a lot of federal dollars to the district. If you’re a constituent, you should reach out to him. For some reason I’m doubting that he actually wants you to reach out to him.
Well, I should give him a chance. Along with several other of his constituents, I have a problem, and I believe that his life story and business acumen endow him with the ability to see a solution to this problem that has eluded me, and that has also eluded his staffers, and pretty much everyone I’ve talked to about this problem.
Talking to Thanedar’s staffers is like they’re on Jeopardy!: they blurt out an answer as quickly as they can, though unlike the contestants on that show, they don’t care whether their answer is correct or not.
Thanedar needs to sit down with me, listen to me describe the problem, ask clarifying questions, meditate for a few minutes, and then let the actual solution to my problem just come to him. I will talk to him, be it at a coffee shop in downtown Detroit, or at his Detroit office, or wherever else in the district is convenient for him.
Of course I’m assuming that his inspiring life story is true, that rags to riches story, and back to rags and back to riches again.
And I’m also assuming that he has good intentions, that he actually wants to solve constituents’ problems, like the problem that I and several other of his constituents also have. What if he doesn’t care about that? What if he just wants to fool enough of his constituents to get re-elected?
So then the question needs to be asked: how is he paying for all those ads on TV and YouTube? Could it be from his own personal fortune? Nah. Or maybe it’s being paid for by his campaign? Hmm… nope. The Detroit News has a fairly recent article about that, but I’m not a subscriber, so I can only read this much in a Google News search:
The Detroit News
Detroit congressman Shri Thanedar spending big on TV ads, billboards using taxpayer funds
Washington — Detroit-area residents are seeing a lot of Shri Thanedar's face if they flip on the television, and taxpayers are footing the...
.1 week ago
The next word after “taxpayers are footing the,” let me see if I can guess it without using ChatGPT: “bill.” Taxpayers are footing the bill.
There’s an article from Business Insider India that from a couple of months ago that might shed some light on the current situation. Bryan Metzger reporting.
If you're driving down a highway in the Detroit metro area, you're likely to come across at least one of them: a shiny billboard featuring Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar's smiling face.
"REACH CONGRESSMAN SHRI 24/7," the tower advertisement typically blares alongside a link to Thanedar's official House website.
But while the billboards are likely to boost Thanedar's profile and name recognition as he faces a competitive primary in Michigan's 13th congressional district, they're not paid for by his campaign.
They're paid for by Thanedar's congressional office — which is funded via taxpayer dollars.
The reporter looked at 2023 records and presumably consulted with an accountant. And after that, the reporter wrote that the records “aren't entirely clear.”
It is true that
Lawmakers have to communicate with their constituents, and that does cost money. But Thanedar's spending habits highlight the gray area that's long existed when it comes to so-called "franking" — an antiquated term that once referred to a lawmaker's signature on a piece of mail but now refers to all forms of taxpayer-funded mass communication by congressional offices.
Thanedar is not “the only member of Congress to blur the lines when it comes to franking.” But of the congressmen mentioned in the article, he’s the only one I’m a constituent of.
And Rashida Tlaib isn’t too happy with Thanedar either.
The congressman has faced allegations from neighboring Rep. Rashida Tlaib of providing poor constituent services …
"While he is busy posting memes, his residents are calling my office asking for my assistance because he is absent from doing his job," Tlaib told the Detroit News in October.
I don’t quite remember how Thanedar became my congressman. One day I was represented in the House of Representatives by Rashida Tlaib, and the next day she was replaced by Thanedar, something about redistricting.
I’ve never voted for the guy and probably never will. Not when he ran for governor, and probably not when he runs for re-election in this district. At Daily Kos, we want more and better Democrats. So far Thanedar is not that. But hey, he can still prove me wrong. If he wants to.