If you donate to state Representative Mark Cusack (D-Braintree), you may be buying him a beer — or a drink of some sort.
Cusack’s campaign finance reports filed with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance show that he frequents bars and restaurants that serve alcohol with campaign funds.
Over the first nine months of 2021, Cusack, 37, used campaign funds to pay for 20 trips out to establishments that serve alcohol; the bills for those trips total $2,605.74. That’s 27.8 percent of the $9,361.63 that his campaign spent in the first nine months of 2021.
Here is a look at his campaign expenses involving places that serve alcohol in 2021:
Gina’s By The Sea (Dennis): $229 on September 7
Carrie Nation Restaurant and Cocktail Club (Boston): $196.22 on August 23
21st Amendment (Boston): $204.08 on August 6
Braintree Brewhouse: $110.33 on August 6
21st Amendment (Boston): $66 on July 29
21st Amendment (Boston): $57.27 on July 15
Braintree Brewhouse: $150.37 on June 24
Caffè Paradiso (Boston): $115.34 on June 16
Campanale’s Restaurant & Lounge (Braintree): $171.75 on May 21
Jake N Joes (Braintree): $56.94 on May 6
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $129.87 on April 19
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $279.00 on March 11
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $87.45 on March 1
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $129.90 on February 22
Braintree Brewhouse: $113.19 on February 18
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $62.10 on February 16
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $107.05 on February 8
Braintree Municipal Golf Course: $127 on February 8
Campanale’s Restaurant & Lounge (Braintree): $109.03 on January 11
Emmet’s Pub (Boston): $103.85 on January 4
Cusack has been tied to alcohol consumption in the past.
During the early-morning post-midnight hours of April 28, 2011, Cusack, then 26, was discovered in the company of a female legislative aide in her mid-20s in “an unlit House chamber” during a late-night beer party after a budget session, according to a State House News Service story published in March 2012.
The Speaker of the House at the time, Robert DeLeo, initiated a brief investigation that concluded that no House rules were broken and no inappropriate behavior occurred. Cusack in June 2011 issued a statement apologizing “for any appearance of impropriety.”
The female legislative aide, Diana DiZoglio, now 38, is currently a Democratic state senator from Methuen. She is running for state auditor.
DiZoglio in March 2018 decried what she called “false assumptions” and “false rumors” about the incident during a speech on the floor of the state House of Representatives, where she served as a state representative at the time. She, too, has denied that anything inappropriate occurred, but she said during the speech that continuing jokes helped lead a state representative she worked for at the time (Paul Adams (R-Andover), who served one term) to fire her, with a severance package and a non-disclosure agreement.
Several attempts to reach Cusack during the past couple of weeks were unsuccessful.
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