Unrelated to this ruling. So not much anyone can do about it. Also, getting into what words are or are not allowed on letterhead is way too sticky.
I'm happy with not forcing the taxpayers to pay for thinly disguised campaign mailings from congress-critters.
No. It's not unrelated to this ruling. The ruling says that the franking privilege has to forbid the insertion of the "Merry Christmas" wish in franked mailings. The rationale for that idiotic determination is that it would constitute some imaginary violation of the First Amendment Freedom of Religion establishment clause.
In other words, TAX dollars cannot be used for fear of some Constitutional disruption in the Force.
But it is still the use of tax dollars to print the letterhead stock used by Congress-critters and to dutifully print out thousands of copies of each mailing. So, if the phrase is used anywhere in the letters, the same idiotic rationale would be expected to prohibit it.
The issue of whether tax dollars should be allowed to be used to disseminate re-election propaganda is a separate and distinct (thorny) issue.
But the issue of whether insertion of ANY religious or holiday sentiment somehow violates the First Amendment prohibition is an entirely different matter.
The claim that saying "Merry Christmas" in the sign-off of those letters somehow risks the
establishment of a religion or somehow risks the
prohibition of the free exercise of anybody's religion is farcical on its face.