Collins staffer may have violated Senate rules by campaigning

One of Senator Susan Collins’ publicly-paid office staffers may have violated a Senate rule when she gave campaign updates to local Republican party members earlier this month, according to a legal expert familiar with the upper chamber’s ethical guidelines.

This month, Carol Woodcock, a representative in the Senator’s Bangor office, spoke on campaign matters to at least two Republican county chapters in Maine. On Wednesday, Beacon reported that Woodcock told Hancock County Republicans that Collins’ campaign is “working very closely” with the Trump administration.

According to the Senate Ethics Manual, office staff, whose salaries are funded by tax dollars, are barred from working on a senator’s political campaign in any official capacity. Office staff can, however, volunteer on their employer’s campaign, as long as they do so outside of their work time and do not use official resources, including their official title.

“I work in the senator’s Bangor federal office. So, I’m not a campaign worker. The senator’s campaign is just up and running a little bit, really on the fundraising side, but we don’t have any real campaign staff. But I’m going to give you a little bit of report on the campaign,” Woodcock told the Hancock County Republicans on June 13 in a video uploaded to YouTube.

Read more: https://mainebeacon.com/collins-staffer-may-have-violated-senate-rules-by-campaigning/