Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA5) likes to pitch herself as a family values candidate. In fact, she values her family so much that she’s paid her brother and father almost $60,000 out of campaign funds over the past two elections. Sweet.
That’s according to a new report, “A Family Affair“, issued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which found that 41 Democratic and 55 Republican representatives have put family members on their campaign payroll over the past three election cycles.
Although it is illegal for members of Congress to hire family members on their official staff, nothing stops them from paying them from campaign funds. So I guess it’s okay because, like, everybody’s doing it, right? Just take a look at the Washington state delegation, where Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Sheriff) paid his nephew Todd $4,281 out of campaign funds, and… um… well… that’s it, apparently. Just McMorris and Reichert.
Yeah, so when I ask for contributions to help pay for the enormous amount of time I put into this blog, I’m a deadbeat. But when McMorris’s father gets paid to work on his own daughter’s campaign, well, I guess he’s just being entrepreneurial.
I suppose that’s the difference between being a Democrat and a Republican.
Pedantic Correction of the Day:
Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW)
Should be Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics…
Oh… did I say CREW? I meant CERW.
(Fixed the error.)
“Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA5) likes to pitch herself as a family values candidate.”
All last year we listened to Republicans bleating about Darcy should stay home and raise her kid. So when is McMorris going to resign from Congress to stay home and raise her kid? Do they have a double standard? Looks like it.
I sure hope they run a “family values” candidate like Cheatin’ Newt or Rompin’ Rudy!
“I suppose that’s the difference between being a Democrat and a Republican.”
Nope. The difference is Democrats work and Republicans own.
And given the serious imbalance in our economy between rewarding labor and rewarding ownership — not to mention the even more serious imbalance in our tax system between taxing labor and taxing capital gains and inheritances — you make out a lot better from owning than from working.
In fact, workers get screwed so bad on both counts, frankly I don’t see why anyone works! I don’t work. Why should I, when I can make more money by sleeping while the stock market does its thing? Since our system punishes people for producing things, no one should produce anything! We should just sell stocks, houses, and rare coins to each other. Then everyone will be rich, and we can ALL live tax-free without doing any work, not just Republicans.
Rove’s Busy Fingers
“The Republican National Committee (RNC) told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove alone sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails between 2002 and 2007 ….”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ils19.html
140,000 e-mails divided by 6 years is 23,333 e-mails per year or 90 per workday (assuming no vacation or sick leave was taken) which is 1 e-mail every 5 1/3 minutes. This guy should have dropped dead from carpal tunnel syndrome by now.
Figured another way … 140,000 e-mails divided by 50 states is 2,800 e-mails per state … so what are the odds that Rove’s busy fingers weren’t involved in John McKay’s firing?
Does anyone believe Rove wrote 2,800 e-mails about Washington but never mentioned McKay?
Wow! These CREW folks are pretty thorough! I saw their report on one representative, where they even managed to find the MySpace.Com pages of that person’s children. (They were amazed that some of them were as young as 12 years old when being paid by the campaign, apparently calculated by the year of the campaign and current MySpace.Com age.)
Now if CREW can just do an investigation of how Jane Hague spent her money during her 2004 abortive campaign for Congress:
http://archives.seattletimes.n.....e+hague%22
Several things come to mind…
1) Where are all the right wing, inbred morons? Why are they so silent here? We all know why, once again they and their ilk are being shown as hypocrites.
2) RR is right to ask when this bitch will resign since Janet S (aka Pam Roach) and her crew attacked Darcy Burner for being a mother “abandoning” her child to run for and accept if elected a position in Congress. I don’t here that same outcry now. Once again hypocrites.
3) I am going to contact these folks and offer to help them investigate Dickie the Pope. With some 14 unsuccessful campaigns under his belt and another one coming, I am sure they can help dig up some of his dirt.
Nominations for Sainthood
Ralph Nader
Goldy
For political activities with out huge income.
OTOH, I would hope pur daithful board op would find a way to make better living. I have known politicians who decided to leave the fielf rather than play the money game.
Holiness, aside, what is the alternative? Does anyone think that the epical fund raising journey of 08 poltics is a good use of these candidates’ time???
How come almost noone is running for Seattle City Council or the Schoolboard?
What the fuck? Rompin Rudy – you know, the Publican front-runner for President…you know, the guy who’s a leader for the moral values team – with three marraiges, (one to a cousin) a string of affairs, children who won’t speak to him, and a series of moments in drag – that Rudy is also supposed to be some leader in the Publican “war on terror.” Now I find out, this piece of shit was a member of the Iraq Study Group and NEVER ATTENDED A MEETING – he was too busy accepting paid speech opportunities to attend something studying the “most important war of our time.”
PLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAASE let this miserable fuck be the Publican candidate. PLEASE!
Goldy:
The folks contributing to this blog do so as somewhat inadequate payment for services rendered, just as my ad at the top isn’t some sort of charitable activity. It’s a business decision (and a pretty good one at that).
We like this blog and want to see it stick around, so voluntarily sending a few bucks your way to help out seems pretty reasonable. You are not required to live like some sort of hermit in an ice cave on Mt Baker in order to ask for some help.
The folks making the “deadbeat” claims are the same folks using every other method available to them to shut down discussion.
As far as family members being paid by campaigns, regardless of party, I really don’t have a problem with that on the face of it.
Campaigns are a lot of work, family members often have to take time off of their regular jobs and work long, hard hours. I doubt that many family members draw sufficient salaries to qualify as windfalls.
If our two local Republicans chose to give paid positions on their campaign staffs to relatives, then either:
1) The position required a person that the candidate trusted implicitly, and the candidate’s relative was qualified.
– or –
2) Mr. Reichert and Ms. McMorris wasted campaign funds that were, even for those two, in relatively short supply.
I have problems with Democrats wasting campaign funds. Republicans are permitted (encouraged!) to warm their offices by burning stacks of $100 bills.
The world would be such a much better place if Republicans did not breed. I will vote for the first Democratic presidential candidate who announces a plan for sterilization of Republicans.
This is happening all across the country in both Democrat and Republican races. Hiring family members, friends, etc. at huge salaries to recoup money invested in the race. There was just a news story (looking for it now) about this that had dems involved too.
@14 “The folks making the “deadbeat” claims are the same folks using every other method available to them to shut down discussion.”
Mainly they’re folks who put money in their pockets by owning things instead of working, and by not paying the taxes the rest of us have to pay.
As mentioned earlier, if people are using family members hired for huge salaries in order to “recoup” money put into the races, then that money isn’t being used effectively for campaigning. If the Republicans want to waste campaign money, more power to them. Not my problem.
If a Democratic campaign hires family members, I expect those folks to earn their salaries. If they do that, then great! If not, then I will deal with that by refusing to send contributions.
5
There are other differences. If the Democrats had a motto, it would be “We’re all in this together.” If the Republicans had a motto, it would be, “I got mine, so screw you.”
19 Ya got it right, pal! Someone whose name I forget at the moment once stated that “the purpose of government is to direct the common wealth to serve the common good.” The neoconservatives would respond “WHAT common good???”, and claim that any sort of common wealth constitutes theft of private property.
What bullshit, 60 grand to little miss family values Cathy’s family! What the hell to they do for that? Stick some signs in the ground. Hope the hell she gets beat! I never thought she had any brains.
Okay, Goldy:
This Rudy Republican says: You are NOT a deadbeat and politics is a family business. Give me a buzz sometime…
Yah! And when a president appoints his wife to head up an attempt to take over the entire US medical system, that’s not suspect, either.
Roger, I vote republican and pay LOTS of taxes. Will you teach me and the rest of us how to do live tax-free like you say?
23 And Hillary got paid, what?
For years until he was replaced by George “I’m only gonna serve two terms” Nethercutt, Tom Foley had his wife managing his congressional office…as a volunteer. Nothing wrong with that, either.
Can’t say as I can even complain about Nancy Reagan going and consulting her psychic about how her husband should run the country, as long as she paid out of her own pocket. Hell, he probably needed the advice anyway.
@19 Or another way to say that would be FIGMO&trade .
Yes Goldy,
You provided the perfect example of how liberal democrats do it. Remember this little gem?
““The point is, I need cash, and so I’ve decided to do what I first should have done a couple years ago, and hold an online fundraiser. That’s right, I’m asking you, my loyal readers, to help me continue my hard work, by forking over a little or your hard earned cash.
I won’t be spending the money on fancy computer equipment (though I’d love a new MacBook if anybody has one to spare)… just the mortgage, health insurance, maybe a trip to the dentist and stuff like that. Just the nuts and bolts of getting by.”
Then as I recall, you immediately took a vacation to Florida. So Democrats lie about the need for money for “nuts and bolts of getting by”, then spend the money on personal extravagences.
Thanks for the clear example.
Hey, Turdly@27, I figure my money was well spent. A little R&R from splenetic idiots like you was more than in order.
Considering the extremely wealthy Don Barbieri who was McMorris’ Democratic opponent in 2004 paid his son to work on his campiagn, I think it is all fair. From what I saw, they all worked hard on the campiagn trail — both families.
The Goldmark family took a lot of reimbursement money also, McMorris’ 2006 Democratic opponent. Considering they often talk of their 7,000+ acre ranch, I doubt they are hurting for money. Goldmark even had his campaign pay for his personal apartment in Spokane during the campaign.