By Patrick Crowley, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 26, 2008

26 Feb 2008 // Kentucky U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning paid his daughter nearly $140,000 in campaign funds over a six-year period to handle the financial accounting and reporting of his political operation, according to a report from a Washington-based government watchdog group.

The payments are not illegal but should be banned by Congress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said in releasing its report, "A Family Affair-Senate."

CREW found that 20 Senators paid family members $528,797 since 2000. Members of Congress are prevented from hiring family members to work in their legislative offices, but they can pay family with campaign funds to perform political work.

CREW said the payments are a "misuse of power by …members of the Senate to financially benefit their family members."

According to the report Bunning, a Southgate Republican in his second term, paid $138,933, or about $23,000 a year, to his daughter, Amy Towles of Fort Thomas. CREW said the money was paid between 2001 and 2006 and came from Bunning's campaign committee and his Political Action Committee, the Political Hall of Fame PAC.

Bunning spokesman Mike Reynard said today that Towles is a "one-person office" who oversees accounting and reporting to The Federal Election Commission.

"She keeps the books," Reynard said. "We have to have somebody file the reports and do the accounting, and (Towles) handles all the reporting for the campaign and the Political Hall of Fame PAC."