About the bill
Should members of Congress or candidates be able to hire their husband or wife for campaign work?
Context
While a 1967 law bans members of Congress from hiring relatives in official public sector government jobs, members are still allowed to hire relatives for campaign jobs. Members of Congress from both parties have engaged in the practice in recent years: Democratic Reps. Gwen Moore (D-WI4) paid her sister and Conor Lamb (D-PA17) paid his brother, while Republican Reps. Russ Fulcher (R-ID1) paid his daughter and Steve King (R-IA4) paid his son.
The practice is legal, although many in both parties have considered it ethically dubious. The Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act of 2007, which would have banned the practice, attracted bipartisan cosponsorship. It passed the House in a voice vote, used …
Sponsor and status
117th Congress (2021–2023)
This bill was introduced on February 5, 2021, in a previous session of Congress, but it did not receive a vote.
Although this bill was not enacted, its provisions could have become law by being included in another bill. It is common for legislative text to be introduced concurrently in multiple bills (called companion bills), re-introduced in subsequent sessions of Congress in new bills, or added to larger bills (sometimes called omnibus bills).
4 Cosponsors (4 Republicans)
History
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Feb 5, 2021
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Introduced
Bills and resolutions are referred to committees which debate the bill before possibly sending it on to the whole chamber. |
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Mar 30, 2023
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Reintroduced Bill —
Introduced
This activity took place on a related bill, H.R. 2452. |
H.R. 856 (117th) was a bill in the United States Congress.
A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law.
Bills numbers restart every two years. That means there are other bills with the number H.R. 856. This is the one from the 117th Congress.
This bill was introduced in the 117th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2021 to Jan 3, 2023. Legislation not passed by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books.
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