At CREW, we’re compiling a list of Political Action Committees (PACs) controlled by members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Today, when I called Rep. William Clay’s (D-MO) congressional office they referred me to the campaign director, Michelle Clay (who I presume is his sister and registered lobbyist we mentioned in our report, Family Affair - House.)

When I called Ms. Clay, she asked me to repeat where I was calling from four times. When I asked her if Rep. Clay was associated with a PAC she said, “Why do you want to know?” I replied that we were trying to compile a complete list of associated PACs. She asked, “I know, I heard you but I want to know what you are going to DO with the list?”

I told her that we were simply going to post the list in an effort to improve transparency in government. Angrily, she yelled “who did you think you are calling here? You’re trying to improve transparency in government and yet you call here with your underhanded and sneaky reasons. People are always coming at us with underhanded and sneaky tactics, I know why you’re calling.”

I tried to reassure her that we were simply compiling a list – that’s all. She said that if I would not honestly answer her question she would not answer mine. This went back and forth a bit as she angrily continued to accuse me of lying about my reasons for calling while I kept trying to assure her that it was JUST FOR A LIST. Finally, Ms. Clay said that Rep. Clay does not have a PAC, but even if he did she wouldn’t tell me. She then asked if the government had asked me to call her. I gave her CREW’s name again, and explained that that we are a non-profit – not part of the government. She repeated that Rep. Clay does not have a PAC, but asked if I knew how to set one up. I told her I didn’t and quickly got off the phone. It was a bizarre conversation.

Surprising that Rep. Clay has someone this rude, unhelpful and paranoid running his campaign.

We rarely, if ever, post entire articles or editorials. But, an editorial in today's New York Times is based completely on the work of CREW. Our report, Family Affair - Senate, and its predecessor, Family Affair - House, provide the foundation. So, in its entirety:

A worthy House measure to clamp down on members of Congress who employ relatives using campaign donations has disappeared into the maw of the Senate. A nonprofit watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, may have come up with a reason why. It has uncovered at least 20 senators who have paid out more than $500,000 in campaign funds to family members since 2000.

The House bill, passed last summer and sent to the Senate, is itself only a half-loaf measure. It would ban the use of political donations to pay spouses, but it would allow these funds to be used to hire other family members, as long as those payments are fully disclosed. The House was shamed into acting by the Jack Abramoff Congressional corruption scandal, and by CREW’s revelation that 72 House members had spent $5 million in campaign funds to employ family members and their companies since 2000.

The Senate, at least so far, has been harder to shame. That is not entirely surprising, considering another discouraging CREW finding: that 31 senators — nearly one-third of the Senate — have one or more family members registered in the lobbying industry.

The Senate has also lagged on other ethics issues. Unlike the House, it still refuses to require electronic filing of its campaign finance data. It clings to an old slow-motion paper system that builds in months of obfuscation by requiring print records that have to be scanned and e-mailed to election officials, who in turn have to do their own processing and printing before the information is publicly available. Senate Republican leaders have, scandalously, been blocking a good bill that would force campaign reporting into the digital age.

The ethical issues here are not hard. Congressional campaigns, which these days are awash with millions of dollars in special-interest contributions, should not be seen as an opportunity to hand out cash to relatives. If Congress cannot muster the ethical fortitude to rein in these familial emoluments, the very least it should do is require members to disclose them up front and expeditiously, so taxpayers do not need to wait for groups like CREW to publicize their conflicts of interest.

In June of 2007, CREW released a report, Family Affair, our first-ever analysis of the misuse of power by the chairmen and ranking members of all House of Representative committees and subcommittees, as well as top leadership positions, to financially benefit their family members. The 96 members constituted only those U.S. Representatives holding key positions in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Based on a report in today's Billings Gazette, the practice is not limited to the House. Wyoming Senatoe Mike Enzi (R) has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to his daughter-in-law:

Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi has spent much of the money he has raised since he was last re-elected in 2002, including campaign payments totaling more than $150,000 to his daughter-in-law for fundraising.

Enzi Strategies, a company owned by daughter-in-law Danielle Enzi, received an additional $170,000 from the Republican senator's political action committee - Making Business Excel - between 2003 and 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Danielle Enzi also serves as treasurer for the political action committee, which pays the consulting fees to Enzi Strategies.

Enzi won re-election with 73 percent of the vote in 2002. He has raised $1.2 million since that race and has spent $923,285 in operating expenses, according to campaign finance records filed with the Federal Election Commission last week.

CREW's Melanie Sloan commented on the revelation about Enzi's spending:

The director of a Washington-based ethics group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said candidates should be required to disclose any family campaign connections to constituents.

"We think its a troubling practice," Melanie Sloan said.

Troubling indeed. Shortly after CREW released Family Affair, the House passed legislation prohibiting the practice of paying spouses -- but not other family members -- from campaign funds.

On Monday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban the use of campaign funds to pay spouses.  CREW documented this abusive practice in our report, Family Affair.  Yesterday, The Politico reports that some members of Congress who have utilized this practice are none too happy:

House members are complaining that their spouses could lose their jobs, their family incomes could drop and, perhaps, the entire pattern of their family lives could change if an ethics reform bill just passed by the House becomes law.

The bill would bar campaigns from employing a lawmaker's spouse. Its backers argue that employing a spouse creates an implicit conflict of interest, tempting lawmakers to overpay and tipping off contributors that some of their largesse will go directly to the lawmaker's family.

But what seems an obvious conflict to some is a way of life to others.

Rhonda Rohrabacher has 3-year-old triplets and a work-at-home job as campaign manager to her husband, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).

She made $57,000 in the 2006 election cycle, according to a recent report by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Under the proposed ban, Rhonda Rohrabacher would be out of a job.

"It's gonna hurt me," Rep. Rohrabacher said. "My family would be deprived of that income. I think it's baloney. I think it's just a way of not having to look at issues by making it a personal matter."

Unlike other ethics reforms, which prohibit lobbyists from buying meals for lawmakers or curtail congressional travel, the spouse proposal strikes an intimate blow to a handful of legislators.

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) paid his wife, Patricia, $110,000 in the last election cycle to do fundraising and prepare campaign finance reports, according to CREW.

He found the new reform proposal so alarming that he sought out one of the bill's original sponsors, Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), to personally voice his opposition.

"It would definitely cause me some problems, probably financial problems," McKeon said. "And if I had to bring in someone else to do the same work, I wouldn't have that same kind of trust."

CREW is getting very good coverage in the articles about passage of the legislation banning payment to spouses from campaign funds.  The Los Angeles Times cites the findings of our report, Family Affair, in its piece today: 

Under a bill the House approved Monday, members of Congress would no longer be able to put their spouses on their campaign payrolls, a practice criticized as a way for lawmakers to profit from political donations.

The action comes after a number of lawmakers, including Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Roseville), have come under scrutiny for paying their spouses from campaign funds.

Doolittle's wife took 15% of the campaign contributions she raised for her husband, once earning $90,000 from a single event.

But dozens of other lawmakers from both parties have paid their spouses, children or other relatives out of campaign funds.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, found that at least 64 House members paid relatives from their campaign funds or PACs during the last three election cycles.

The measure, approved on a voice vote, comes as a broader overhaul of lobbying rules has stalled. But with Congress suffering from dismal job-approval ratings, Democratic leaders were anxious to showcase progress on ethics reform, an issue that was a central theme in their successful campaign last year to win the majority.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that prevents payment to spouses from campaign funds.  The Washington Post intimates that CREW's study, Family Affair, provided the impetus for the House action:

The measure, passed on a voice vote, was sponsored by Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Michael N. Castle (R-Del.). It would not bar other family members from working on a lawmaker's campaign but would require disclosure.

The vote follows a study released last month by the liberal-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that found that nearly 100 chairmen and ranking minority members of House committees used their roles to benefit their families, including employing spouses and other kin for campaign or consulting work.

Schiff originally conceived of the measure as an amendment to an ethics bill passed in May, then decided to offer it separately. "Specifically I was concerned about cases where a spouse was being paid on a commission basis," he said, describing an arrangement made and later discontinued by Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), who paid his wife, Julie, a portion of the donations she brought in.

By making such agreements, Schiff said: "You're essentially telling a donor, 'Part of what you give to my campaign, you give to me.' That's inherently a conflict."

Schiff said he is "reaching out" to find sponsors for a Senate version of the bill.

Just received notice that H.R. 2630, the "Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act" will receive a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives tonight. The bill is currently on the suspension calender which, according to the House Whip's office means "Bills considered on the Suspension calendar are debatable for 40 minutes; may not be amended; and require a two-thirds vote for passage. If a recorded vote is requested, it will be postponed."

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) prohibits payments to a candidate's spouse from campaign committee funds -- or from a Leadership Political Action Committee (PAC). It also requires the reporting of any payments to family members from those funds.

CREW's report, Family Affair,  released last month, was the first-ever analysis of the misuse of power by the chairmen and ranking members of all House of Representative committees and subcommittees, as well as top leadership positions, to financially benefit their family members.  Family Affair, named 96 members from 33 states: 41 Democrats and 55 Republicans, who used campaign funds to pay family members.  Under the Schiff-Castle bill, were it to become law (and it should become law) that practice will end for spouses.

CREW's report, Family Affair, continues to generate interest.  This report clearly struck a nerve as people learned that members of Congress were using campaign funds to pay their family members.  The term "nepotism" kept popping up as it did in the headline of this article, "Study Finds Nepotism in Congress":

There are least 64 members of Congress who used campaign funds to pay family members, including San Bernardino Reps. Jerry Lewis, Howard “Buck” McKeon and Joe Baca, according to a recent report.

The report, released by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, lists 64 congressmen who have either paid a family member, has a family member that is a lobbyist, made a contribution to a family member’s political campaign, paid a company in which a family member has a financial interest or has used a position to benefit a family member.

According to the study, Republican McKeon’s campaign committee paid his wife, Patricia McKeon, $110,806 in salary and an additional $10,528 forreimbursements.

“We have always followed the rules,” said McKeon, who represents Victorville. “Patricia only gets paid for the work she does, and that’s the right thing to do.”

And then there was this revelation:

Republican Jerry Lewis employs his wife, Arlene, as his chief of staff. She is paid a salary of nearly $111,000.

No one from Lewis’ officereturned calls for comment. 

House rules prohibit the hiring of a spouse to work on a congressman’s staff, but this doesn’t violate that rule because she worked for him before they were married.

CREW's report, Family Affair, really struck a chord. Editorials around the country have joined the call for Congress to end the loophole that let's members hire family members using campaign funds. The McClatchy newspapers have dubbed it the "nepotism loophole" -- and they want it closed:

The family that campaigns together gains together: At least 64 members of Congress used campaign funds to pay family members in the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections, according to a study by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The biggest spender, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a San Jose Democrat, paid nearly $350,000 to her husband's companies for event management, fundraising, accounting, regulatory compliance, rent and office services.

That's perfectly legal. But it shouldn't be.

Congress members aren't allowed to use campaign funds to pay the household bills. It makes no sense to let them use campaign funds to pay a spouse who helps pay the bills.

A scathing editorial about Rep. Dan Burton's use of campaign funds to pay family members in today's Indianapolis Star -- just scathing.   The paper understands the potential for abuse from using fundraising dollars to compensate close family members -- even if Burton and his colleagues don't

A watchdog group -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) -- shows the 12-term Republican apparently thinks that the purpose of politics is to provide jobs and income for his relatives.

Burton isn't the only member of Congress with a penchant for putting family on the payroll. Fellow Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer's campaign committee helped his daughter Colleen with her bills in 2004 by paying her $1,900 in fundraising fees.

Forty-four other members -- including long-shot presidential candidate Ron Paul and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va. -- also employ or pay fees to their relatives.

But given Burton's record for flouting decorum and common sense, it isn't surprising that he's landed on this list.

Burton's daughter, Danielle Sarkine, makes a living as one of her father's campaign staffers. She earned $58,400 in salary (along with $3,200 in reimbursed expenses) from her father's campaign committee last year.

In fact, Sarkine has earned $144,000 from the campaign over the past six years, ranking her among CREW's list of the 10 most well-compensated relatives on a congressional campaign.

Burton's younger brother Woody already holds a powerful political seat in the Indiana House of Representatives. But he was paid $5,600 from his brother's campaign committee between 2002 and 2006 for vehicle repairs, insurance and other services.

As a rule, members of Congress aren't allowed to place relatives on their congressional staffs, largely because of the taint of nepotism and the potential for corruption. By hiring relatives as campaign staffers, they leave themselves open to the same kinds of problems, including the type of "ghost employment" that sows the seeds for graft and worse.

Ultimately, it is up to representatives to behave themselves. Some, like Burton, who is serving his 25th year in Congress, have come up short. He should know better. But as we've seen before, his disregard for the voters and even campaign donors knows no bounds.