Karen Waters, daughter of Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), will take in more than $200,000 from her mother’s campaign after its debts are paid off for running a lucrative slate mailer operation for her mother.
Karen is in charge of slate mailers, or endorsement mailers, in which candidates pay Rep. Waters’s campaign to appear on mailers that are sent to more than 200,000 residents in the South Central Los Angeles area, where Waters holds a good amount of clout. The mailers contain a sample ballot and quotes of support from Waters.
As of the end of the 2016 election cycle, Karen and her firm Progressive Connections had been paid more than $600,000 in campaign funds from the committee for the running the slate mailers since 2006, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported.
Karen received another $108,862 in payments from her mother’s campaign committee during the 2018 election cycle, FEC filings show. The committee additionally reported that it still owes $94,000 to Karen. Once the debt is paid off, Karen will have received more than $200,000 in payments from the committee as marked at the end of the midterm cycle.
The campaign was paid more than $200,000 from the likes of Democratic candidates and judges in California during the most recent campaign cycle.
Could you imagine the backlash if someone in Trump’s family was making money like this?
Well, now Waters is facing two FEC complaints.
The first complaint alleges Waters broke federal campaign finance law, and also names the California Democratic State Central Committee and Sen. Kamala Harris, a likely 2020 Democratic presidential contender.
The conservative National Legal and Policy Center is still drafting a second broader complaint focusing on the sources of money going to the Waters campaign and flowing to her daughter—and the accuracy of campaign finance reports, said Tom Anderson, director of the group’s government integrity project.
Rep. Waters, first elected in 1990, has been in the headlines lately for her calls to impeach President Trump and statements urging public confrontations with his Cabinet officials.
Well before her current political fame, though, she mastered this somewhat-rare form of fundraising in slate mailers. California’s top politicians as well as local office-seekers have given far in excess of legal contribution limits to her campaign to be on her slate of endorsed candidates. The campaign then pays Karen Waters and other firms to produce, print and mail the sample ballots. The FEC approved the practice by Waters in 2004.
“Maxine Waters found an old provision and turned it into a cottage industry,” Anderson told Fox News.
However, the FEC complaint filed on July 25 states that the California Democratic party paid $35,000 to the Waters campaign in 2016 to include the endorsement of Harris’ Senate candidacy on the mailer. The FEC complaint, which cited an October campaign finance report, contends a third party is not legally allowed to pay for the mailer of a candidate without a reimbursement under the 2004 FEC advisory opinion.
A separate report shows that the Harris campaign paid $30,000 to the Waters campaign earlier in 2016 for a primary slate mailer, but no subsequent payments.
“The Democratic State Central Committee of California’s $35,000 contribution to Citizens for Waters violated campaign finance limits,” the complaint states.
Neither Waters’ congressional office nor her 2018 campaign responded to phone and email inquiries. Karen Waters also did not respond to phone messages. A California Democratic Party spokesman and Harris’ Senate office did not respond to phone and email inquiries.
The mailers continue to be a lucrative source of funds.
For the 2018 election cycle, FEC data shows, as of July 28, that Democrat Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign paid $27,000 to Waters’ re-election campaign to be in the mailers.
Source: Fox News, Free Beacon
