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L. Informational Materials
You may accept informational materials, such as books, articles, magazines, newspapers, CDs, DVDs, or flash drives that are sent to your office to assist with your official duties.[107] You may accept one copy regardless of who sent the informational material or the value. You may not accept additional copies sent to your home, and your official copy should not be used to supplement your personal library.[108] You may accept informational materials from any source, including a constituent or a lobbyist. If you are offered a subscription to a periodical, you may only accept if the subscription comes from the periodical’s publisher or distributor.
[107] House Rule 25, cl. 5(a)(3)(I). You should consider whether the material you were offered truly is informational and will benefit you in your official capacity. For example, a copy of a tax law textbook may be informational if you are considering revisions to the tax code, but the latest fiction murder mystery may not be informational.
[108] Comm. on Rules, Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to Provide for Gift Reform, H.R. Rep. No. 104-337, at 11 (1995).
You may also accept informational materials provided during an event or meeting, such as an event program or one-pager about the organization or its policy position.
You may accept informational materials that come in a set, but you may not accept periodic updates to that set. Additionally, you may not accept full application software or access to a database under this exception. You may, however, accept a demonstration copy of the application software that is not fully functional, to understand how the software works. You may be able to accept full application software or access to a database under a different exception to the Gift Rule.
If offered, you may accept multiple copies of an informational material for the purpose of distributing those materials to your colleagues or others. The purpose of the multiple copies must be for distribution to a specific group, you may not keep the multiple copies for your unrestricted use, and the materials must not be created specifically for you.
Example (Permissible). A constituent sends you a copy of a bestselling book about budget reform. The book’s list price is $60. You may accept the book as an informational material.
Example (Permissible in Part). You are offered a 5-part PBS documentary that is relevant to upcoming legislation, and you are offered a book series that is updated annually. You may accept the PBS documentary and the initial set of books. You may not accept annual updates to the books.
Example (Impermissible). You are on the Natural Resources Committee and a constituent offers to pay for a subscription to National Geographic. You may not accept the subscription because the offer did not come from the publisher.
Example (Permissible in Part). You are working on legislation involving online tax preparation. A tax preparation company offers you free access to its tax preparation website, which usually requires a $79 annual registration fee. The company also offers you access to a free tutorial about how to use its website. You may not accept the free access to the website, but you may accept the free tutorial.
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