'Strengthening our Party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grassroots effort all across America,' Michael Steele writes in a letter. RNC 'census' mailer draws fire

Officials of both parties are sharply criticizing a fundraising mailing from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele they say could be confused with official correspondence regarding this year’s census.

The fundraising letter comes in the form of a “survey,” a frequently used device for partisan fundraising, but this one has a twist: Calling itself the “Congressional District Census,” the letter comes in an envelope starkly printed with the words, “DO NOT DESTROY OFFICIAL DOCUMENT” and describes itself, on the outside of the envelope, as a “census document.”


“Strengthening our party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grass-roots effort all across America,” Steele writes in a letter that blends official-sounding language, partisan calls to arms, and requests for between $25 and $500. “That is why I have authorized a census to be conducted for every congressional district in the country.”

The mailing is a Republican Party standby, a source of contributions — and occasional complaints — for more than a decade. But the latest round comes in a year when the actual United States census is getting under way, and officials say they’re worried that the GOP will sow confusion. News outlets in Wyoming, New York, Tennessee, and Minnesota have printed complaints about the mailers, with the director of the Census Bureau's regional office in Kansas City, Dennis Johnson, criticizing the letter in the Pioneer Press.

"My biggest concern is that it might be confusing to some residents who get this and then get the real one in a couple of months," Johnson said.

Congress is also taking an interest.

“The mailing appears to be designed to resemble official census documents and to deceive recipients as to its true origins,” wrote Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) and Rep. William Lacy Clay (Mo.), who chairs the House Subcommittee that oversees the census, in a letter last month to the U.S. Postmaster General. “We believe that the RNC mailings are an attempt to mislead recipients and appear to us to be violations of federal law,” the letter states.

The ranking Republican on the subcommittee, North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, has also raised concerns about the RNC mailing, though an aide said he hasn’t complained to the RNC directly.

“Congressman McHenry is very concerned about the integrity of the census and would discourage any organization from distributing information that intentionally or not is easily confused with official U.S. Census materials,” the aide, Parker Poling, said in reference to the RNC mailer.

Maloney complained of the same mailing in 2000, during that year’s census, and Maloney and Clay asked the postmaster general to open an investigation into whether the mailings violate the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act. Postal officials responded — as they did 10 years ago — that the mailing stays on the correct side of the law because it doesn’t use the full name of the U.S. Census Bureau or the seal of any government agency.

And a spokeswoman for the RNC, Gail Gitcho, downplayed complaints.

“The document is simply a mailer from the RNC that captures Republican opinion and raises a little bit of money,” she said in an e-mail.

Even some who have been involved with the program, however, acknowledged that it walks the line.

"Of course, duping people is the point. ... That's one of the reasons why it works so well,” said one Republican operative familiar with the program, who said it’s among the RNC’s most lucrative fundraising initiatives. “They will likely mail millions this year [with] incredible targeting.”