Maryland Del. James Malone's Hurricane Spam Raises Ethical Questions

As a potentially deadly hurricane bore down on her Violetville home, Janice Bowen was taken aback by an Aug. 26 e-mail from her elected state representative, Del. James E. Malone, Jr.

“You’re Never Alone…” read the e-mail subject line, alluding to Malone’s familiar political slogan.

“My initial thought was that Delegate Malone was sending out information about the hurricane,” said Bowen, who retired after 32 years of service as a state employee. “As soon as I looked, I saw that it was a solicitation for a commercial enterprise. It did not sit right with me.”

The e-mail was a pitch for Royal Plus, a privately owned disaster clean-up company based in Snow Hill, MD, for which Malone serves as director of business development.

A solicitation for Royal Plus was also posted to Malone’s Facebook page.

“I found it odd,” said another constituent active in community groups who asked to remain anonymous. “He’s a state delegate advertising for a business. It isn’t appropriate.”

Bowen said Malone exploited his constituency for commercial purposes.

“There’s no way he could have had my e-mail address except from contacting him as a constituent,” she said. “I never gave my e-mail address to anybody. My thought was, 'This isn’t right. This isn’t ethical.'”

Without addressing the specifics of Malone’s e-mail, “the law says that it’s illegal to use the prestige of office to promote a private business,” said William G. Somerville, ethics counsel to the Maryland General Assembly.

State law also prohibits the use of government resources for private business, but Somerville was uncertain whether a constituent e-mail list used for official correspondence is considered state property.

“I can’t say for sure it’s unethical” to send an e-mail advertising a private company to a list of constituents, Somerville said. “We’re getting close.”

Malone responded that there was nothing wrong with his e-mail.

“I wouldn’t do anything unethical, illegal, nothing,” he told Arbutus Patch. “All I was trying to do was tell people there’s a hurricane coming and, 'We’re here to help you.'”

Malone said that the Aug. 26 e-mail was sent to a list of 4,500-5,000 names compiled in software called Constant Contact, which is maintained and managed by a friend.

Aside from the e-mail addresses of constituents, Malone’s Constant Contact database includes friends, colleagues, business people, civic leaders and others he wants to keep informed of his activities.

“It’s not just constituents,” he said. “There are a lot of people. I get a million e-mails all the time, and I try to put them in Constant Contact.”

Malone said that the e-mail addresses in his database are compiled from a variety of sources, including from people who give him business cards.

“They’re from all over the place,” he said. “I don’t know where every single, solitary e-mail address came from.”

The same Constant Contact database is used for his political and official communication, Royal Plus business, and announcing personal news.

Malone said comingling e-mail addresses is not improper. “I don’t do anything illegal,” he said. “Everything I do is paid for by me.”

Malone has been in the state House of Delegates since 1995. He represents Dictrict 12A, which includes portions of southwestern Baltimore County and Howard County.

Based in Worchester County, Royal Plus has been in the disaster recovery and cleaning business for 28 years. Malone said that he has been in charge of business development for about 2.5 years.

Several constituents expressed surprise about being “spammed” by an elected official. Unsolicited commercial mail sent in bulk to recipients with whom senders don’t have permission or an existing business relationship is known as spam.

Bowen said that if e-mail addresses are being compiled by an elected official, they should inform people how that information may be used.

“I really believe that every e-mail address and business card he collects as part of his job as a state delegate shouldn’t be used to push a private enterprise,” Bowen said. “It is not a good use of the e-mail addresses of constituents.

“I have no idea if the state has a privacy policy like that,” she said.

Neither Del. Malone’s web site nor that of the Maryland General Assembly have privacy policies or terms of service statements that explain to visitors how e-mail addresses or other data may be compiled or used.

The Constant Contact privacy statement linked at the bottom of Malone’s e-mail says, “Our e-mail marketing is permission based. If you received a mailing from us, our records indicate that (a) you have expressly shared this address for the purpose of receiving information in the future (‘opt-in’), or (b) you have registered or purchased or otherwise have an existing relationship with us.”

People who have “received unwanted, unsolicited e-mail” are directed to send the e-mail to abuse@constantcontact.com.