Cory Spartacus Booker hit with ethics complaint for fundraising off his filibuster

New Jersey Democrat Senator Cory Spartacus Booker (NJ) bloviated for a record-breaking 25 hours last week, said nothing of value or interest, and now he tried to raise money from his speech, according to The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), an ethics watchdog group.

The group filed the complaint on Tuesday alleging that the senator used his speech to raise campaign money and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics received the allegations showing that Booker sent a series of campaign messages to his supporters during and after his bloviating on the Senate floor. This included messages asking followers to "stand with Cory" during his speech by signing up for his email list and others that solicited contributions for Booker and the DNC from anyone "inspired" by his historic showing.

This tactic is in violation of long-standing ethics rules prohibiting congress members from using their official position for campaign purposes, FACT wrote in its complaint. 

If Booker's violation goes unpunished, the group warned, the Senate floor "will increasingly be seen as a campaign venue and treated as such."

"It is clear that Senator Booker's Senate floor speech had a campaign purpose," FACT said in its complaint. "During his speech, he sent a series of emails that campaigned and sought valuable supporter information and campaign contributions based on his Senate floor speech. Immediately after his speech, Booker sent an email that requested donations for his campaign and the DNC if the recipient liked what they saw him do on the Senate floor. There is no more direct of a tie between an official action and campaign solicitation."

The Senate's ethics rules "do not allow what is clearly performance art on the Senate floor for future political gain, whether that be for list-building or fundraising," the watchdog's executive director Kendra Arnold told the Washington Free Beacon. "I hope the Senate Ethics Committee will take action on this case and others like it to discourage other senators from fundraising off official actions and to maintain citizens' confidence in Congress."

Booker received widespread praise from the press and Democrats for his 25-hour floor speech, not so much for what he said than for the length of time he spent on the Senate floor without taking a break to pee or otherwise. 

But who knows? Depends.

Political pollster Frank Luntz said that Booker "may have changed the course of political history" with his speech. He believes his performance makes him the top dog for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, but AOC and Jasmine Crockett disagree.

But Booker's speech wasn't a real filibuster in the traditional sense. It didn't obstruct any legislation and all he did was bash Trump's cuts to the federal workforce and yadda, yadda.

Mostly yadda, yadda.

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