CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Wadsworth Rep. Jim Renacci earlier this month used his congressional office to fund Facebook ads touting his January vote on a popular children's health-insurance program.
In doing so, Renacci, who now is running for the U.S. Senate, may have spent the most of any member of Ohio's congressional delegation on taxpayer-financed Facebook ads since at least 2016, according to House records and Facebook political-ad data.
Renacci's ads ran from Aug. 1 through Aug. 7, and cost between $10,100 and $20,500, according to Facebook. Another Ohio representative, Joyce Beatty, a Columbus-area Democrat, spent between $2,900 and $12,995 in official funds on her own ads, which ran in early July, according to Facebook ad data. Her office did not immediately narrow down exactly how much her ads cost, nor did Renacci's.
House records showing official Facebook ad spending by members have been easily searchable since 2016. During that time, the most any member from Ohio has spent on Facebook ads in one year was the $7,878 Republican Rep. Warren Davidson spent in 2016, House records show. The other Ohio members who have bought Facebook ads during that time include Beatty ($6,431 in 2017), Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge ($1,306 in 2017), and Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs ($275 in 2017.) The records, which run through 2017 do not show Renacci previously buying Facebook ads out of his congressional budget.
The most any U.S. House member has spent in one year nationwide is $17,918, which California Rep. Ari Bera, a Democrat, spent in 2017.
Using congressional funds to communicate with constituents isn't unusual -- it comes out of each's member's "franking" budget. But increasingly, House members are using their franking budgets on Facebook ads. In 2017, House members spent at least $340,000 in taxpayer funds on Facebook ads, according to a review from USA Today. More commonly, Facebook's data show, congressional candidates in Ohio and elsewhere use their campaign funds to promote themselves on Facebook.
Renacci's ads promoted his vote in January to extend the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health insurance for children of parents who make too much to qualify for Medicaid. They also invite viewers to visit Renacci's House website. The Facebook ads were accompanied by physical mail pieces, according to two Twitter users who received them.
Renacci's Facebook ads ceased running shortly before an Aug. 8 deadline, or 90 days before the Nov. 6 election, after which House members are not allowed to use their office funds to send mass communications.
And while the topic seems anodyne, CHIP funding was a core piece of a contentious political battle in January that led a brief federal government shutdown. It also is the subject of previous criticism from Renacci against his Democratic opponent in the Senate race, Sen. Sherrod Brown. CHIP funding lapsed in September in the Republican-led Congress, even though the program has wide bipartisan support, due to disagreements over how the program would be paid for.
Plunderbund, a liberal Ohio political blog, wrote about the Renacci ads on Wednesday, describing them as "pushing the limit on Congressional rules for Facebook advertising on the taxpayer dime."
But Renacci did not appear to break any rules in publishing the ads.
Kelsey Knight, a spokeswoman for Renacci's office, in an email said the ads' content was authorized by a bipartisan commission before being sent.
"Like many members of Congress, Jim believes that communicating with his constituents is vitally important and has consistently set aside a portion of his pre-determined office budget, which would otherwise go to things like salaries, and directed those dollars to communicating with those he serves," Knight said.
Knight shared a graphic from Quorum, a research firm, showing that Renacci has published the sixth-most Facebook posts of any member of Congress. Renacci is personally active on Facebook, and has been known to mix it up with people on his page.
In a Jan. 20 tweet, Renacci, who at the time had just gotten in the U.S. Senate Republican primary, referred to Brown as a "fringe left career politician" for not voting for the more expansive government-spending measure that included the CHIP funding.
Brown failed in an attempt to have the CHIP funding separated out. On Jan. 22, he voted for a measure funding the government and extending CHIP funding for six years. (In February, Brown voted for another measure extending CHIP funding for another four years.)
Facebook's analytics data, which the social-media platform began publishing for political ads in late May in the face of mounting public criticism, show two of the three versions of Renacci's ads were seen entirely by Ohioans. A third version, which cost between $5,000 and $10,000, was seen by Ohioans 92 percent of the time, with residents of other states seeing it 8 percent of the time.
Kelsey did not share how the ads were targeted, but said politically targeting ads using House communications budgets is not allowed.
"In the past we have used both direct mail and digital communications to do this, particularly as the mediums through which people consume information have shifted. This is nothing new," she said.