The survey mentions Northeast Ohio U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, but it’s not from her office. It’s from a lobbying group.
CLEVELAND — It’s a little out of the norm to get a request for a donation mentioning a member of Congress who was just reelected, but that’s what happened to one 3News viewer.
THE QUESTION
Rita Smith emailed me a survey request she got in the mail. It’s about legislation focused on protecting social security benefits, mentions Northeast Ohio U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, and asks for a donation.
Let’s VERIFY whether this is legitimate.
SOURCES
- A staff member Sykes’ office
- The Council for Retirement Security
EXPLANATION
The first thing I did was call Sykes’ office, because at first glance, it seems like this survey might have come from her. A staff member told me that this survey was not sent out by the congresswoman or on her behalf.
Upon closer inspection of the survey itself, in the middle of the first page, we see the name of an organization called the Council for Retirement Security. Below that, in tiny print, we can see an explanation that the Council for Retirement Security is a program run by the National Seniors Policy Center, which is a 501(c)4 organization.
In other words, it’s a dark money group which is engaged in lobbying.
When we go to the website for the Council for Retirement Security, we can see they are supporting several “petitions” or “surveys” right now. The drop-down menu showing those petitions allows us to select the Social Security Lock-Box Act petition, which is what our viewer received in the mail.
ANSWER
So we can VERIFY this survey is legitimate; it’s just not from Sykes.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
What this mailer says is that the people behind this survey want to share your responses with the representative to try to influence which way she might vote on the Social Security Lock-Box Act, and they’re also asking for a donation from you, while they’re at it.
