New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell recently sent a mailer to households in the city touting “Strong Leadership for a Resilient City.”
Now legal experts are questioning the use of tax payer dollars on the promotional material.
It all comes at a time that organizers of the effort to recall Cantrell say they are closing in on gathering the needed signatures to force an election asking voters if they want to remove the mayor from office.
A Gambit article outlines possible laws the mailer could violate.
For non-campaign related communications paid for the by the city, state regulation 43:111.1, for instance, explicitly states, “No public funds shall be used in whole or in part for the payment of the cost of any advertisement containing therein the name of any public official whether elected or appointed.”
There are also a number of regulations which cover the use of city funds, resources and personnel for campaign purposes.
State regulation 18:1465 states “No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated to a candidate or political organization. This provision shall not prohibit the use of public funds for dissemination of factual information relative to a proposition appearing on an election ballot,” and carries with it penalty of a maximum $1,000 fine and/or up to two years in prison.
Legal analyst Joseph Raspanti told Gambit, “It appears the mayor has gotten some poor legal advice, because she has put out a document that cost taxpayers $50,000 by her own admission, and that document has her face and name plastered all over it.”
He says the statutes clearly state that elected officials cannot do what the mayor has done.