Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) in the second quarter of 2023 continued her long-held practice of paying her daughter with funds from her campaign, which steered thousands of dollars to Karen Waters, campaign finance disclosures show.
The campaign for Maxine Waters has paid more than $1.2 million to Karen Waters since 2003 for slate-mailer operations and also items such as "administrative services," "fundraising," and "rally expenses," the Washington Examiner reported. On April 27, Karen Waters was sent $8,000 combined from her mother's committee, Citizens for Waters, for a "slate mailer management fee," according to newly released disclosures.
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The revelation that Waters has poured more cash into the pockets of Karen Waters comes amid scrutiny from the GOP and watchdog groups over politicians using their campaigns to support their family members. "Squad" Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) faced multiple ethics complaints earlier this year over her payments to Cortney Merritts, a security professional from St. Louis, Missouri, whom she married in February in a private wedding ceremony.
Paying family members with campaign funds is not necessarily unlawful, though it is typically frowned upon by legal and ethics experts. The FEC allows the practice if the family member is compensated at a rate that is "fair market value," but the threshold is hard to determine and leaves room for gray areas when it comes to enforcement.
"With payments to family members, this can be difficult to determine because, unlike payments to others, there may be an incentive to pay a family member more or pay them for work that is not needed," Executive Director Kendra Arnold of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a right-leaning watchdog that in March urged the FEC to investigate Bush over the payments to Merritts, told the Washington Examiner.
"This makes it difficult for the public to determine whether the payments complied with the law," Arnold said.
Slate mailing, the practice that Karen Waters has been listed as working on for her mother, refers to when consulting firms or campaigns make pamphlets for voters with information such as ballot measures, endorsements, recommendations, and candidate lists. While it is common in Oregon and California, Waters was reportedly the sole federal politician to use slate mailers in the 2020 general election.
In 2022, for instance, the campaign for Waters paid her daughter $88,500 for a slate mailer management fee, according to disclosures. The congresswoman has also come under scrutiny in the past for her financial affiliations with family — being notably charged in 2010 by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly violating House rules upon attempting to arrange a meeting in 2008 between Treasury Department officials and representatives for OneUnited, a bank that her husband, Sid Williams, owned stock in and used to count him as a board member.
The panel later cleared the congresswoman in 2012, though said at the time that the chief of staff for Waters, Mikael Moore, "did take actions in Congress in an attempt to help the bank and violated standards of conduct."
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"There’s virtually zero oversight into politicians self-enriching themselves and their families," Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), who last year co-sponsored the FIRE Act, a measure that would block lawmakers from using campaigns to pay family members, previously told the Washington Examiner on Waters paying her daughter.
The Waters campaign did not return a request for comment.