Blunt libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, and outspoken liberal Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, would seem to have little in common.
But Ron Paul and Maxine Waters do share at least one dubious distinction. They both like to put family members on the payroll.
In terms of numbers, Ron Paul has enriched more relatives - six -- than any other House member over the past two election cycles.
Though Maxine Waters had just two relatives on the payroll, her daughter and her grandson, she was more generous than Paul. Waters showered her relatives with a combined $495,650, while Paul doled out $304,599.
The unlikely pair features prominently in a new report from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), "Family Affair," that details how 248 members of the House of Representatives have been using campaign funds to pad the pockets of their relatives and, in some cases, themselves.
And as is often the case with such Washington shenanigans, no rules were technically broken.
"A lot of what was done is legal, but a large segment of the contributing population would be surprised to see that their donations went straight into the pockets of congressional family members," Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
"There's all sorts of ways members of Congress can further their family's financial interests, which amounts to nepotism."
The widely known Ron Paul and Maxine Waters demonstrate that such practices are bipartisan, although Republicans cited in the CREW report do outnumber Democrats 143 to 105.
The key findings in the CREW report, which focuses on the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, paint a picture of lawmakers unabashedly using their positions to enrich family members as well as themselves:
But Ron Paul and Maxine Waters do share at least one dubious distinction. They both like to put family members on the payroll.
In terms of numbers, Ron Paul has enriched more relatives - six -- than any other House member over the past two election cycles.
Though Maxine Waters had just two relatives on the payroll, her daughter and her grandson, she was more generous than Paul. Waters showered her relatives with a combined $495,650, while Paul doled out $304,599.
The unlikely pair features prominently in a new report from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), "Family Affair," that details how 248 members of the House of Representatives have been using campaign funds to pad the pockets of their relatives and, in some cases, themselves.
And as is often the case with such Washington shenanigans, no rules were technically broken.
"A lot of what was done is legal, but a large segment of the contributing population would be surprised to see that their donations went straight into the pockets of congressional family members," Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
"There's all sorts of ways members of Congress can further their family's financial interests, which amounts to nepotism."
The widely known Ron Paul and Maxine Waters demonstrate that such practices are bipartisan, although Republicans cited in the CREW report do outnumber Democrats 143 to 105.
The key findings in the CREW report, which focuses on the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, paint a picture of lawmakers unabashedly using their positions to enrich family members as well as themselves:
- 82 representatives paid at least one relative a salary or fee;
- A total of 117 family members received such payments, which totaled $5.58 million;
- 90 representatives gave money to family businesses, employers, or associated nonprofits;
- A total of 118 family businesses or employers received such payments, which totaled $3.15 million.
- 69 representatives reimbursed family members for campaign expenses;
- 110 representatives reimbursed themselves for campaign expenses;
- 14 representatives earned interest on loans they made to their own campaigns.
Supplemental Income for the Rich
Many of the amounts that landed in family members' pockets were stunning.Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-CA, paid his wife (and campaign manager) $238,438. Rep. Jerry Lewis R-CA, paid his wife $512,293. And Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-FL, paid his girlfriend a whopping $622,574.
Members of Congress only earn $174,000 a year, so the extra income no doubt helped make ends meet.
Money is so tight for some members of Congress that three representatives - Bill Cassidy, R-LA, Jason Chaffetz, R-UT, and Tim Walz, D-MN - used campaign funds to reimburse themselves and their wives for babysitting costs.
Other lawmakers patronized family businesses in a big way.
Maxine Waters sent a total of $347, 837 to her daughter's public relations firm, Progressive Connections. And Rep. Sue Myrick, R-NC, hired her stepdaughter's advertising firm for $408,818 worth of TV and radio ads.
Then there are the six Democrats and eight Republicans who charged interest on loans they made to their own campaigns.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-TX, for example, collected $25,000 by charging his campaign interest on a $100,000 loan over about 10 years.
"Often, candidates will loan money to their campaigns and then just take in the interest for years to come," CREW's Sloan said. "It's amazing how they'll allow the loan to linger while raking in the interest."
Ron Paul: "100% Above Board"
Although such activities veer close to violating House ethics rules, the vague language defining the violations makes it almost impossible to say for sure.For their part, the lawmakers called out in the CREW report have offered no apologies.
"Everything that Dr. Paul has done in politics is 100% above board and any insinuation otherwise is completely off base," said Jesse Benton, Ron Paul's spokesman. Benton is also Paul's grandson, one of the six relatives listed in the CREW report.
Other members justified the hiring of family members by pointing to the work they did.
"Given their sacrifices, when appropriate and in accordance with federal law, my campaign will reimburse my campaign staff for any campaign-related expenses," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-TX, in a statement defending the efforts of his brother and niece.
Reyes reimbursed himself and family members a combined $404,889, the highest reimbursement figure in the CREW report.
In terms of remedies, CREW urged the House Ethics Committee to review the cases listed in its report. But Congress has proven very poor in the past at disciplining its own members, even in cases of flagrant violations.
And as the representatives have pointed out, nepotism does not actually break any rules.
"Some things that aren't illegal may still raise serious ethical questions," Sloan told The New York Times. "If donors really understood where their money is going, I think they would be aghast."
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Paul campaign condemns watchdog report alleging nepotism
You would think that the $512k paid to a wife and $622k paid to a girlfriend would be in the headline as opposed to Ron Paul's average of $50k during a presidential election cycle.
This reporter is either too ignorant to see this, or too biased to care. In any case, David Zeiler is incompetent.
Running this story twice huh? Or is this the 3rd or 4th time? I lose track of all the hit pieces and Ron Paul slander, our supposed journalist can come up with! Must not be any real news today or the puppet masters are tugging strings again!
When will the powers that BE, learn, the people are awake and we demand to be heard regarding our liberties and freedoms bestowed upon us by our forefathers.
Ron Paul understands this and sees that the true strength, in a united nation, is in the people. ALL people, we are ONE! We know (Ron Paul supporters) Ron Paul hires family. We know Dr. Paul hires family to provide security, he doesn't use the TAXPAYER provided secret service. This is why we give to his campaign! We know he is NOT backed by CORPORATE ELITE or is he able to be bought by SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS.
Running these HIT PIECES constantly instead of reporting on real news, such as the blatant election fraud (video evidence) that is taking place all over THIS NATION!Such as, declaring a winner of a caucus with 85% of the votes tallied, when only 197 votes separated the top finishers!? And lets not forget the counties that FOLLOWED THE RULES IN THE VOTING PROCESS–WHOSE VOTE DIDN'T COUNT–COUNTY X = 0 VOTES, COUNTY Y = 0 votes, ETC…! I could go on, but that is YOUR JOB, TO REPORT THE NEWS!
Keep your hit pieces and your so called news! We are not LISTENING!
David,
Jesse Benton is not Ron Paul's grandson.
Do you always do such thorough fact checking?
Hmmm…so what does it mean for the attempted smear if you can't even get the facts straight?
Turns out Mr. Benton is not Ron Paul's grandson, but according to the CREW report he is Rep. Paul's grandson-in-law. I took that fact from another news source. You can't trust anybody!
I've given as much as possible to the Ron Paul campaign and have skipped meals so I could donate and I don't care who or where he spends the money! He protects the rights and freedom of everyone in the world and I'm proud to say Paul and no one else is my candidate!
Some of these payments are ridiculous. ($600k to a girlfriend, for what?!?) But, most of them don't seem out of line. For example, $25,000 interest on 100k loaned is 2.5% interest on average over a ten year period. That doesn't sound unethical to me.
If I had complete decision making authority on hiring decisions, I would hire family members too. (The good ones, not the bad ones…you know who you are…!) The key is the amount of compensation. Ron Paul paid 6 relatives $300k — works out to a little over $50k each. If they were truly doing work, nothing sounds unethical here.
I despise politicians and their cronyism. This article also demonstrates why I despise the media. Most of these "allegations" are bogus. Use the big name folks (Waters and Paul) to draw attention and report superfluous cr@p. Lewis and Hastings are the only real stories here, and maybe some of the reimbursements. Focus on that please.
I think its important to note that while Paul's family members are receiving money from through his offices, it is because they work for it and they believe in what Dr. Paul is doing. This could easily be contrasted with other presidential contenders' family members who in some cases actually work for the Paul campaign. Both Romney and Santorum have family members who work for Dr. Paul.
Also, considering that Paul has pulled in close to 40 million dollars in just this election cycle, 300 grand is virtually nothing. Jessie Benton who is Paul's campaign manager (also grandson) would easily be worth that 300 grand himself, but that total has been split up between 6 of his family members.
I think your title is slanted with a negative connotation toward Dr. Paul and should be removed.
P R O P A G A N D A ! Ron Paul vows to take a salary of $39,000 a year when he wins the presidency. He doesn't even speak to lobbyists, and he rejects having secret service protection while running. For Mitt, Newt, and Rick to get SS protection, it costs us the taxpayers $150,000 A DAY! In just two days, that’s the total cost of what Paul has paid his family members altogether with HIS OWN campaign money!
This lame smear attempt is DISGUTING propaganda!
Off all politicians you choose to slander Dr. Paul? Especially about use of govt funds? You are really desperate to please your Masters, are you not?
Wow!
Wow. Ron Paul "enriched" SIX family members via 304 thousand over TWO years. What is that? about 24K each per year? (It doesn't actually work out like that because one provided accounting services and another ran a Presidential campaign in 2008, and that was about 1/3 of the money paid out).
Now in contrast Obama paid more to ONE guy to run his campaign in 2008 than Ron Paul paid to six family members. As did Romney.
a fee for service is perfectly fine. should it matter whether the employee is family or not? there is no mention of positions, qualifications or what was required to obtain employement.
as far as Dr. Paul goes, we have television news media which now is completely ignoring his progress, social news media posting hundreds of misleading articles, obvious tampering with votes, manipulation of rules for delegate selection, and as you have mentioned the majority of congress is looking the other way. i cant blame Dr. Paul for wanting individuals he can trust working him. smart move if you ask me.
sorry typo: working for him :)
This is a silly rap on Ron Paul. He consistently turns down paid vacations (Junkets), congressional Golden parachute and healthcare worth really big bucks and something for nothing that 95% of the congress members feed at the trough on. But he is being accused of hiring relatives for work done at competetive salaries.
6 [extended] family members — all working on the payroll and performing admirably. For what? $50k average yearly salaries? I can sleep absolutely soundly (even more sound, in fact), knowing that there are more Pauls working for our country than there would be otherwise.
The Maxine Waters example doesn't even come close to the Paul example. But meh, this is attention-seeking/mainstream news as far as I'm concerned. "Special," in other words.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO LOOK AT A POST? I SUBMITTED THE ABOVE POST EARLY THIS MORNING AND IT IS STILL WAITING ON A MODERATOR. WHAT GIVES?
So nothing was done wrong here? Thanks for wasting my time. Why don't you stop copying someone's else's weak story and try to find out exactly what the jobs were, who held them, how much they were paid, how qualified they were, whether or not they did a good job and what they are doing now. Then write the story again.
It is probably more surprising that more of the clowns that meander their way into politics haven't taken advantage of the, presumably deliberate, vague regulations governing spending other people's (read taxpayer's and/or donor's) money. It is one of the curses of the Western World that we have been brought up thinking our leaders are straight when they are as corrupt as any third world despot, only a little more refined. (Except that refinement is beginning to show a little corrosion now.)
Sooner or later the 99% are going to get sick of the crap they are being fed and will suddenly coallesce into a mob that tries to straighten the situation. At that point, making yourself as scarce as possible would seem to be a good idea.
Boy, your moderators must be busy! Almost 2 days and my comment has yet to be blessed. What a change of heart? Did you feel guilty about your lies and failings and decided to pull this hit piece?
I see my "comment is awaiting moderation" a full day after I posted it. Hmmm. Is your moderator asleep at the switch?
What's the problem? You guys don't want to showcase the sloppiness of your smear campaign?
Whatever happened to integrity?
So David,
Are you happy now that you ran the smear piece?
Jeez, I can see why you delayed all the comments. Yeow.
I'll save you the effort of checking: Benton is Ron Paul's grandaughter's husband. That doesn't make him his grandson…in case you're a little shaky on your geneology. Couldn't bother to check, could you?
A disgraceful display of urinalism.
If you are supposed to be representing the people, are making 6 figures a year and you see the unemployment rate hovering above 8%, why hire family members at all? How about opening up those job positions to some of the unemployed people holding degrees or who used to be in management positions?
Democrats, Republicans AND (Gasp!) Ron Paul are ALL guilty as charged with unethical nepotism. I don't care that Paul's SIX relatives "only" averaged $50k each. Hire 12 unemployed people for $25k. So sorry, you Paul acolytes, his hiring practices are just as shady as the rest of them.
And? What's wrong with putting family on payroll?
I just have one question: What is so wrong with nepotism?
After all, these spots most likely need to be filled by SOMEONE; shouldn't the employer have the choice as to who fills the slots? These were people employed by the political campaigns; they were not government employees. If I was running for a political office, I would prefer having people on my staff that I could trust beyond just a typical man on the street that just happened to fill out a job application. In my business the first people I look to for hiring are friends, because they would have more faith in my business than someone walking down the street.