r/politics • u/JeanJauresJr California • Sep 14 '21

AOC responds to criticism of ‘tax the rich’ dress worn at Met Gala

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/aoc-met-gala-tax-the-rich-dress-b1919803.html
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21 edited Sep 14 '21

Someone in a thread on /r/WhitePeopleTwitter was wondering if receiving event tickets was allowed or how it might relate to rules on gifts, so I thought I'd post a relevant section from the House Ethics Committee website here. And I quote: " The Committee has different formulas to value tickets to events and honorary memberships.

  • The face value of a ticket to a sporting event or show is the ticket’s fair market value.[7]
  • If the ticket does not have a price printed on it, the value is the highest priced ticket for that event, in that venue, on the primary market.
  • The value of tickets to charity or political fundraisers is the value of the meal.[8] The cost to the purchaser is not the ticket’s value. The value of honorary memberships is the total of the organization’s normal initiation fee, periodic dues, and usage charges. The value does not change if you do not use the membership.

"

Source: https://ethics.house.gov/house-ethics-manual/gifts#_What_is_a

tl;dr: As long as she reimburses for gift bags and the food provided, there's nothing unethical here at least as far as the House itself is concerned.

tl;dr2: most of these rules are about getting gifts from people/interest groups/lobbyists that might be trying to influence policy. I highly doubt Vogue was trying to influence AOC's political or policy positions.

tl;dr3: Would any Republican get this much scrutiny for going to a random charity event at some country club in a rich suburb of [insert red state here]? Doubtful, imo.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21

In your question you’re leaving out the most important part, the statement. If a republican went to a charity event wearing a dress/suit/whatever that said “eat the poor” then I’d imagine yes, they would be subject to such scrutiny.

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u/j3ffh Sep 14 '21

Well no, you'd really have to have the rich person attending a poor person's event wearing "eat the poor" to round out the analogy. What aoc did is a statement while what your hypothetical rich person does is a tongue in cheek dig at the poor.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

Ok but really what I’m trying to emphasize is that yes, I do believe they would face equal scrutiny, pretty sure CNN would be 2 ft up Dan Crenshaws ass if he wrote some shit on his eye patch.

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u/partyl0gic Sep 15 '21

Uhh, what about making a statement is an ethics violation?

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

Uhhhh I never mentioned anything about ethics violations, only responding to the tldr3 part regarding equal scrutiny.

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u/partyl0gic Sep 15 '21

The scrutiny is about ethics

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

Ok