Larry Flynt's My Hero

From BerkleyRoll Call (subscription required)

As promised, all those back issues of Hustler magazine were delivered to Congressional offices on Friday. Senate offices received several back issues of the smutty mag a day after Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle sent a memo to Senate offices that read like something out of The Onion with the euphemistic subject line: “Upcoming Delivery of Periodicals.”

Despite complaints from many offices that didn’t want Larry Flynt’s in-kind porn contribution, Pickle, after consulting with legal counsel, determined that the Senate was legally bound to deliver the magazines.

“It is the policy of the Senate Post Office to deliver all mail to Senate addressees regardless of content,” Pickle wrote in the memo, which was sent to Senate chiefs of staff and administrative managers. “We deliver what we receive as long as it is safe and the mailing envelope is non-threatening. With respect to this particular publication, a federal court in the past specifically interpreted the publisher’s constitutional right to petition as requiring the United States Postal Service to continue to deliver all properly addressed mail to Members of Congress.”