The Family Business
The political fundraising practices of Linda Chavez and family offer a lesson: caveat donor.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

POLITICS IS a business these days, and, as in the ordinary business world, smart political operatives need to diversify: a few political action committees here, a nonprofit there, perhaps a charitable organization on the side. These businesses, though, aren't subject to much scrutiny of how effectively they fulfill their proclaimed missions and who benefits along the way. The Post's Matthew Mosk offered a glimpse of this underscrutinized, under-regulated world in examining the various entities associated with Linda Chavez.

A former Reagan administration official and once President Bush's choice for labor secretary, Ms. Chavez now sits at the helm of a political empire that includes antiabortion, anti-union, anti-affirmative action and pro-Republican groups. What was fascinating, and disturbing, about The Post's report was how little of the donations these groups collected were spent on their goals and how much went to various Chavez relatives. Of $24.5 million raised by the political action committees from 2003 to 2006, just $242,000 went to contributions to political candidates, and even less -- $151,236 -- was spent on political activity. Instead, the money was plowed back into fundraising and operations -- and to pay Chavez family members: Ms. Chavez, her husband and her sons received more than $260,000 from the political action committees over the past five years and even more from the nonprofit groups. As Ms. Chavez told The Post, "I guess you could call it the family business."

The report underscores the need for closer scrutiny, better disclosure and tighter controls for these sorts of entities -- not just for Ms. Chavez's groups, but for others, particularly those linked to politicians, that make a practice of employing relatives. It also provides a glimpse of the world of political fundraising, in which many telemarketing firms arrange to keep most of what they've supposedly collected for political causes. Would donors to the Pro-Life Campaign Committee have been as willing to write checks if they had known that the Arizona telemarketing firm that solicited their donations held on to as much as 95 percent of the money? Would they have been so willing to give to the Republican Issues Committee if they had known that it spent on political activity less than 1 percent of the $14.6 million it raised? If family members are on the PAC payroll, shouldn't that be separately reported?

Ms. Chavez says she has used the groups to advance her political agenda, not "to enrich myself or my family," and that she could be making "far more money" in the private sector. Much of what the groups achieved, she says, doesn't show up in an expenditure line on a Federal Election Commission report. Perhaps, but the lesson of the Post story is that donors should ask about where, exactly, their money is going, and to whom, before they open their checkbooks.