Boxer pot aide should have gone with different drug.
9th September 2010
Moe Lane kicks over a rock.
The scheme goes like this: Maxine Waters (D, CA-35) regularly puts out a mailer to LA residents with her sample ballot recommendations. To get on it, you have to pay out money to ‘cover the costs.’ It’s described as ‘reimbursement’ rather than ‘payment’ because that way there’s no federal campaign funding restrictions, which effectively means that candidates and groups can be charged as much money as Rep. Waters likes. And a third of that money ends up getting funneled into a PR firm owned by Waters’ daughter – and before you object: the article linked above notes that the firm’s “fees do not include expenses for printing and mailing, which are paid separately by the committee.”
And here’s the kicker: that payola’s all perfectly legal, mind you. Rep. Waters has worked out a method where she can sell her patronage to other Democrats and funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family, and the FEC can’t touch her for it (it’s also not part of her ethics investigation).