Leonard Lance, Lying To New Jersey... Again

When I was a kid I would spend the summers in Mount Freedom, New Jersey, a few minutes north of the district now represented by career politician Leonard Lance. I have a lot of friends and relatives in the district and one got a letter as a response to asking about Rep. Lance's hypocrisy for taking government-subsidized health care while voting to repeal it for New Jersey taxpayers:

Dear Mr. XXX:
 
Thank you for contacting me regarding health care benefits provided to members of Congress. As always it is good to hear from you.
 
I do not participate in the federal employees health benefits (FEHB) program. In fact I have never been enrolled in the federal health care program since being elected to Congress in Nov. 2008.  Many members of Congress may get their health care coverage through FEHB but I do not.

Lance used an old Philadelphia lawyer's trick. He misleads without actually technically lying. It's true that he doesn't "participate in the federal employees health benefits (FEHB) program." But why should he? He already gets a much richer government subsidized healthcare plan as a perk for the decades he worked as a state politician in New Jersey. In fact, his healthcare is costing New Jersey taxpayers much more than it would if he gave that up and got on the federal employees health benefits (FEHB) program. But the New Jersey plan is way cushier than the federal plan-- even if it costs the taxpayers more. Lance is misleading his constituents... even as he's voting to screw them out of legitimate healthcare reform.

Friday Night Jane Roh at the Cherry Hill Courier Journal broke the story about how Lance deceived his constituents. She quoted his chief of staff, Todd Mitchell, who forced WCTC, 1450 AM to remove the Blue America ad calling attention to Lance's hypocrisy.

"I should've kept my mouth shut," Chief of Staff Todd Mitchell told the Courier-Post Friday.

The station general manager suggested me re-do the ad. We're working on it. And we'd like to run it on some of the bigger stations in the district. Can you help us raise the money we need to do it at this ActBlue page? New Jersey is one of the most expensive media markets in the country. But this is a story that needs to get out so New Jersey voters get a better understanding of the character of the man is asking for their votes. (In 2010, in the midst of a GOP sweep, Lance only managed to win with a 30,000 vote margin, a district Obama took 51-48% 2 years earlier.)

Greg Sargent-- on the case this morning... he thinks Lance's behavior is "funny... It's another mark of the ways that the politics of repeal-- even if the health law is unpopular-- are putting some Republicans in a very awkward spot."