Introducing the OMAR Act

In her young career Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar has made her mark in a variety of ways. To take one, she was the first member of the Minnesota legislature to take office while married to her brother (her first of three legal, sort of, husbands). Moving on to Congress, to take another, she was the first member of the House of Representatives ever to have been married to her brother or nonbinary sibling, as House rules now deem him.

Omar also made her mark with third husband Tim Mynett. Working as Omar’s campaign consultant, Mynett’s firm was the prime beneficiary of the millions of dollars Omar raised for her congressional campaign. Omar worked this particular loophole in campaign finance law like a champion corruptocrat. The Washington Free Beacon reports, for example, “Omar Kept Husband’s Consulting Firm Afloat.” Subhead: “Campaign payments to her husband’s firm accounted for nearly 80 percent of its 2020 cash haul.”

Now Omar is the first member of Congress to be recognized in one of those bills whose titles make for a relevant acronym. Yesterday Wisconsin Seventh District Rep. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Eighth District Rep. Mike Gallagher introduced the Oversight for Members And Relatives Act, which would put an end to the practice of candidates for office tapping their campaign accounts to enrich their spouses (and themselves). Rep. Tiffany’s press release on the proposed OMAR Act is posted here.

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