Lawmakers add relatives to campaign payrolls

• Members often cite trust as reason to hire family members
• Ethics experts say it%27s another way for special interests to curry favor with Congress
• Records show spouses%2C children and other relatives join campaign payroll

WASHINGTON — Thirty-two members of Congress dispensed more than $2 million in campaign funds to pay relatives' salaries during the 2012 election cycle, a USA TODAY analysis of the most recent campaign records shows.

Lawmakers have hired their children, spouses, aunts, parents and in-laws as consultants, accountants and record keepers, the examination shows. In some cases, multiple members of the family joined the payroll.

Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., for instance, paid his daughter, Lisa Lowe, more than $73,000 between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2012. Another daughter, Ginger Robinson, also works for the campaign and collected $57,000 in salary during the 2012 election cycle. The campaign also underwrote 17 auto payments, totaling $32,700, Federal Election Commission records show.

The payments to relatives do not involve taxpayer money, and the practice is considered legal as long as the relatives are qualified and earn market rate for their work. Although federal candidates have wide leeway in spending campaign funds, they cannot use contributors' money for personal expenses. However, campaign-finance watchdogs argue there's potential for conflict when political contributions — some from industries that lawmakers' regulate — end up supporting family members.

"Special interests who are seeking to influence what you are doing in Congress are allowing you to employ your mom, your sister and brother-in-law," said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign-watchdog group. Nearly two decades ago, she unsuccessfully lobbied the FEC to prohibit the practice.

"You are enriching your family at the same time you are serving the public trust," she said.

Alexander and other lawmakers defended hiring family members, saying they are trusted, competent staffers.

Alexander, a six-term congressman, said his daughter Lisa majored in finance in college and handles the day-to-day running of his campaign. Ginger Robinson is a certified public accountant and prepares filings for the Federal Election Commission, he said.

"It's a modest income for what they do," he said. "What's funny to me is that it would be OK for me to pay a complete stranger $100,000 to do what they do."

The car payments, he said, now cover a lease on a Ford F-150 pickup that he uses for campaign purposes. Previously, the campaign leased two cars. Congressional rules bar him from using taxpayer money for campaign travel. "We have a district that's 700 miles long … and it's cost-prohibitive to use personal vehicles," Alexander said.

As part of its examination, USA TODAY identified relatives by comparing the last names of campaign-fund recipients with those of lawmakers and researching their family ties. The nepotism in campaign hiring is likely to be even more widespread because the analysis does not include every example of relatives without the same last names as current members of Congress.

Among the biggest recipients of campaign money in the 2012 election: Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush's wife, Carolyn, took in $147,549 in salary and consulting fees between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2012, the USA TODAY tally shows. More than one-quarter of all the money Rush raised for his re-election went to pay his wife, records show.

Carolyn Rush has long been on the Illinois Democrat's payroll. She has received more than $360,000 in campaign money since Jan 1, 2008, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.

Two other members of the Illinois congressional delegation employ relatives. The campaign of Republican Sen. Mark Kirk has paid his mother, Judy, more than $27,000 in salary and consulting fees in 2011 and 2012. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat, paid wife Soraida nearly $93,000 during the 2012 election cycle.

Rush declined to comment, through a spokeswoman, and Kirk's spokesman did not respond to interview requests.

Gutierrez spokesman Douglas Rivlin said Soraida Gutierrez, a former banking executive and lobbyist in Illinois, handles "all aspects" of the campaign's accounting. "The congressman trusts her."

Rivlin said there's no conflict with Gutierrez's duties in Congress, where he has been a leading champion of legislation to help the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants gain citizenship. "What drives the congressman is getting immigration reform passed and protecting people from getting deported," he said.

"This is not a get-rich-quick scheme."

Anti-nepotism rules prohibit Senate and House members from putting family on the government payroll, but efforts to ban using campaign money to pay spouses, children and others relatives have gained little traction — despite high-profile controversies.

More than a decade ago, the Federal Election Commission established the practice as appropriate for campaign committees as long as the relatives performed "bona fide" campaign services at a fair-market rate.

The 2001 ruling was sought by then-Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., whose campaign went on to pay his wife's firm more than $430,000 from 2002 through 2012, data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show.

Last month, Jackson pleaded guilty in federal court to using campaign money to buy more than $750,000 worth of luxury items, collectibles and clothes. Sandi Jackson, meanwhile, admitted falsifying the couple's tax returns. Sentencing for the couple is scheduled for this summer.

Payments to spouses came under intense scrutiny in 2006 after news emerged that then-congressman John Doolittle, R-Calif., was paying the fundraising firm run by his wife, Julie, a 15% commission on contributions it solicited for his campaign and leadership PAC. More than $140,000 went to her firm between 2003 and 2006. Doolittle discontinued the practice. In 2008, he announced his retirement from Congress after being investigated as part of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

The House voted to ban campaign payments to spouses in 2007, but the measure died in the Senate.

In January, on the opening day of the new Congress, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., introduced a bill that would prohibit not only spouses but any immediate family members from drawing salaries from campaign accounts. On the Senate floor, he slammed the payments as "just a way … for politicians to pad their family income."

Nearly two months later, the measure has failed to attract any co-sponsors.

"There's an accepted culture among many campaigns to surround themselves with family members they deeply trust," said Craig Holman of the left-leaning watchdog group Public Citizen. "As long as the FEC has given its blessing for this kind of nepotism, there isn't much of a call for members of Congress to change this."

Election-law experts say lawmakers have broad discretion in deciding how much to pay their relatives.

Campaign-finance lawyer Stefan Passantino, who advises corporations and Republican candidates on their political activity, urges politicians who want to hire relatives to create a paper trail, showing they have compared their family members' skills, job descriptions and salaries with others in similar posts.

Even so, "there hasn't been a great deal of oversight — other than public scrutiny and public opinion," he said.

The USA TODAY analysis shows vast differences in campaign pay.

Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, paid out more than $126,000 to his wife, Patricia, during the election cycle to serve as campaign treasurer and a fundraiser. The campaign also reported providing nearly $10,000 in contributions and equipment to Patricia McKeon's unsuccessful California state assembly bid last year.

His top contributors are defense manufacturers.

McKeon spokeswoman Alissa McCurley said there's no potential for conflict. Patricia McKeon "earns a salary, not a commission," McCurley said. "It's not like she gets a cut" of the money she raises.

Other lawmakers paying their relatives more than six figures over the two-year election cycle include Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who paid daughter Mary Elise Moran nearly $105,000, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who paid daughter Kristin Barton more than $131,000, including nearly $17,000 in bonuses.

Barton's spokesman did not return phone calls. Moran's spokeswoman, Ann Hughes, said that Mary Moran, her father's campaign manager for the 2010 and 2012 elections, was a "valuable member" of the team but no longer works for the campaign.

By contrast, Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican now in his fourth term, paid his wife, Jean, nearly $33,000 to keep the campaign's books, organize fundraisers and file FEC reports.

"Congressman Lamborn and his wife would much prefer to hire this out to someone else but haven't found the right person for the job," spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said.

The practice is not limited to senior lawmakers.

Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, elected as part of a Tea Party wave in 2010, added his wife, Rebecca, to the campaign staff a few months after he was sworn into Congress. She earned a little more than $41,000 between May 2011 and the end of last year as the campaign's "custodian of records."

Labrador's spokesman did not return phone calls. "I don't think we have any comment right now," Rebecca Labrador said when reached by phone.