Last week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) went on a tirade on the Senate floor blasting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. He referred to him as  a “spoiled brat,” “a con artist” and a “human leech who will bleed the country.”

His speech likely violated Senate ethics rules. Members of both the Senate and the House are prohibited from conducting political campaign activity in a federal building. The applicable ethics rule states, “The General Appropriations statute, 31 U.S.C § 1301, provides that official funds are to be used only for the purposes for which they were appropriated.  No official resources may be used to conduct campaign activities.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Reid has attacked the Republican presidential nominee from the Senate floor right before the election. In 2012, he accused Mitt Romney in a speech of not paying taxes for most of the past 12 years, and directly addressed his campaign for president, “This week we learned Mitt Romney only wants to be president of half of the United States. If Mitt Romney were president, he wouldn’t waste time worrying about the 47 percent of Americans who he believes are victims, who Romney believes are unwilling to take personal responsibility.”

A senior Senate Republican aide told The Hill, “He’s campaigning on the Senate floor. It’s the taxpayer-funded Senate floor. The speech had nothing to do with the Senate. It was a pure campaign speech. You couldn’t give it in the rotunda. You couldn’t give it in my office. It’s a taxpayer-funded building.” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) piled on after Reid’s speech, continuing the criticism of Romney.

Selective enforcement

Unfortunately, no one seems willing to enforce this ethics rule when it comes to members of Congress. According to The Hill, the ethics rules have been narrowly “interpreted as a ban on receiving or soliciting campaign contributions in Senate buildings,” ignoring the overall prohibition against campaigning generally. Yet they aren’t even the same statute. While 31 U.S.C § 1301 generally prohibits political campaign activities, 18 U.S.C § 607 specifically prohibits soliciting campaign funds on federal property. There is also another narrow ethics rule that is enforced, a prohibition on using video of congressional proceedings in a campaign video. Consequently, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was found to have violated this rule, and he took down the offending video.

The laws appear to be selectively enforced — against underlings not so fortunate to be members of Congress. Federal employees and appointees of the executive branch have similar restrictions under the Hatch Act, which prohibits them from engaging in partisan political activity on federal property or while on duty. The Office of Special Counsel found in July that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro violated the Hatch Act when he promoted Hillary Clinton for president during an interview with Katie Couric in April. He was considered to be on Clinton’s short list for a possible presidential running mate at the time, and he even said on air that his statement was made in his personal capacity, but it didn’t matter.

If allowed to continue, Reid’s speeches against Trump will no doubt influence the election. A powerful Senate majority leader using his bully pulpit to denounce the presidential candidate, which is broadcast on C-SPAN and repeated throughout the news, will carry significant weight with American voters — the precise thing the Hatch Act and congressional ethics rules were drafted to prohibit.

Time for an investigation

Senator Reid should not be above the law. Castro’s actions were far less egregious than Reid’s, yet he was found in violation of the Hatch Act while almost no one other than Megyn Kelly of Fox News has questioned the propriety of Reid’s speeches. It is long overdue for Congress to start policing itself, instead of protecting fellow members in some kind of good old boys’ club. This contributes to why Americans have such a low approval rating of Congress. There needs to be an investigation by the Senate Rules Committee into Reid’s speeches and he must be prohibited from making any more campaign speeches against Trump prior to the election. Otherwise, what’s to stop Republican members of Congress from giving speeches against Hillary Clinton? Clinton would be wise to condemn Reid’s actions.

For some Capitol Hill reaction to Reid’s legally dubious anti-Trump outburst, see the The Stream article “Congressman: GOP Senators Are Letting Reid Slide On Illegal Trump Smear.”

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