Rules in application to campaign expenditures are not all that difficult to follow. Funds are only to be used for expenses directly related to the campaign itself. There are no exceptions for money related to any personal use of the type that you wouldn’t already be doing as a normal citizen. Ted Cruz is no normal citizen and so it is very hard to delineate between Cruz the candidate and Cruz the weirdo. The candidate gets to spend campaign money, the weirdo can spend weird money, like payments to a spa, which are currently in question.
I do confess that I personally have a hard time getting worked up about $9,000 going to “beauty salons” between the year 2016 through October of this year. The money did come directly out of his Senate campaign. Making Ted Cruz look perfectly presentable as a candidate for the U.S. Senate will require some money – true. Would he go out of his way to look presentable as “Ted Cruz”? Huffington Post wants to know and scoured the expense sheets and wrote:
It’s not clear if the expenses were for the candidate, who doesn’t appear to wear makeup or maintain an expensive haircut, or for someone else. Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, has acted as a campaign surrogate in the past.
It is not crazy to think that wife Heidi Cruz is close enough to the campaign such that money couldn’t or even shouldn’t be spent on helping her play the role. Of course, she will be stuck with the fact that she might be going to the spa anyway, under any pretext. These are not obvious calls under the rule – regrettably called the “irrespective test.”
Under the “irrespective test,” personal use is any use of funds in a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal officeholder.
Some of us prefer the term “Without regard to… ” but irrespective of the plain fact, it’s still a difficult test. Ted or Heidi Cruz would likely want to be fairly presentable and a person of means – like Heidi Cruz, previously a shareholder at Goldman Sachs, would most definitely be hitting the spas around a town like… New York City?
Yes, in New York and therein lies part of the problem. Go Huffpo:
The most recent expenditure was $282 at Allure Day Spa in New York City on Oct. 11, between the first and second weeks of Cruz’s bus tour across Texas. It’s not clear what the money was spent on, though the most expensive package the spa advertises on its website costs $250 and provides “HydraFacial skin-renewing treatments” to “help you achieve a youthful, confident look.”
Of this entire sage, this might be the most difficult to believe. No self-respecting New York City spa would so much as look at someone for less than $250 – but, irrespective of that all-too-obvious fact, the expenditure looks bad given that Ted Cruz was on a bus. If Heidi was in New York, then what campaign expense was she fulfilling?
See? It gets a little difficult because she is a fundraiser for the campaign and she could honestly say that she was going out to dinner with potential donors who just happen to be other shareholders at Goldman Sachs – I don’t know this to be the case. Just saying. It is also true that Heidi might well see former co-workers anyway and would likely look nice. I simply don’t know.
Ultimately, though, it is Ted Cruz’s campaign and he will have to know if a complaint is submitted. Ironically, HUffpo’s article notes that Cruz is acutely aware of the rule, quoting Ted earlier in the year as saying:
“We don’t want candidates using campaign funds to pay personal expenses, whether new clothes, a weight loss program, or a gym membership purchased to help the candidate look better,” Cruz said, quoting a former FEC commissioner…
To help the candidate look better? This looks bad. After all, the “up” in “makeup” is generally considered to cover something up, cover up something someone wants covered – generally for a reason. Cruz is looking worse and makeup isn’t fixing this.
It is pretty tough to cover up expense reports already submitted. Does anyone care? All it takes is one person to file a complaint to the FEC – or the FEC can take it up themselves. Meanwhile, Cruz is running for his political life against the well-financed Colin Allred.
Make what you want out of all this, irrespective of whether it results in a complaint, Ted can’t make this look any better. I am sure some New York Spas are more than willing to try. It will cost more than $250… that’s not made up.
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and @JasonMiciak
There’s no amount of money that can polish that POS and erase the evil stink. Instead of school kids…why isn’t anyone taking shots at nazis? We certainly shot plenty 1941-1945. Maybe after they steal the election, start executing their rivals, build concentration camps, destroy millions of families, and pour gas on the mass suicide of climate change…we’ll put those 400 million guns on our streets to good use. Or…we can use what we bought with 400,000 dead boys in the European part of WW2…AND VOTE LIKE YOUR PHUCKING CHILDREN’S FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. If not, I know plenty of people with weapons for sale. The next civil war will make the 1800s look like a block party. Hey magats…should that come to pass…don’t worry about being in a verbal altercation. We didn’t argue with you in Normandy and we won’t now should the worse happen. A bullet doesn’t lie…YOU DO.
The MAGAt couch-heroes forget that the rest of America is armed too. They also forget that their ass-licking Supreme Court’s gift of immunity applies to all presidents, not just their fave criminal Trumpler. That means Biden now and Harris after the election. I doubt that Joe will use it but I suspect Kamala would if needed to protect our democracy. It’s long past time to take the gloves off.
Well, I heard from Donald Trump that Ted’s wife is an ugly hag, so I guess they needed that money to keep her from scaring children.