Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson says he's followed all the congressional rules in appropriately using his taxpayer-funded mailings this election year.

That may be, says Republican John Swallow, who is challenging Matheson this year, but the Sandy attorney says Matheson's mailings look and read like campaign literature, which the government shouldn't pay for. "And I'm not the only one that says it just isn't right," says Swallow.

Officially called the frank, the government paying for newsletters, brochures or other "constituent information" is a long-held — and often criticized — privilege of Congress' 100 senators and 435 House members.

Rep. Chris Cannon, also, says he's followed all the rules in sending out his newsletters, town hall meeting notices and a brochure this year.

Rep. Rob Bishop sent out a bunch of town hall meeting notices/newsletters, said his chief of staff Scott Parker. Bishop spent the most of all Utah House members, more than $65,000 on four mailings. That's because two newsletters went out to more than 129,000 people in each mailing.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who also faces re-election this year, said Bennett has not sent out any newsletters this year. In fact, he has only sent out one in 12 years in office.

Each representative gets an annual office budget, explained Matheson spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend. It is up to that official to allocate that budget as he or she sees fit and pay for the frank as part of that spending.

Matheson sent out five mailings this year at a cost of around $30,000, or 2.3 percent of Matheson's yearly office budget of $1.26 million, Heyrend said. "That's about normal for us" whether Matheson is in an election year or not, she added.

However, because a frank mailing is banned 90 days before a general election, those five mailings were crammed in before an early August deadline.

It is not unusual for some constituents to confuse an official newsletter with a campaign mailing, and the newspaper has received several calls over the summer complaining about some of Matheson's mailings, the callers asking why U.S. tax dollars are paying for what looked like a campaign piece.

"They certainly look like a campaign brochure to me and to others" who have complained about them, said Swallow, who added some recent votes in the House by Matheson seem disingenuous in light of his use of the frank.

Matheson tried this past week to stop the House from accepting a $4,000-a-year pay raise. He failed but criticized national lawmakers for taking the raise while the U.S. government is running hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

"He talks against a pay raise and then spends tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded 'campaign' mailers," charged Swallow.