More Family Business

There are a lot of families that get into politics and it becomes their life and legacy. Heck, in some countries, like England, it's the raison d'etre for the Mountbatten-Windsors. Here in America we've had many families that are political dynasties; the Adamses, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Bushes, perhaps the Clintons, even. And most of those families got into it because they were drawn to the idea of public service and giving back to the country something of what they've earned.

That's changing, however. Now we have at least one family that is seems to be doing it just for the money.

Linda Chavez rose to prominence in the 1980s as a tart-tongued Reagan administration official and candidate for the Senate, eventually becoming a well-known Latina voice on social issues and President Bush's choice to lead the Labor Department. With her conservative celebrity came book deals, a syndicated column, regular appearances on the Fox News Channel -- and a striking but little-known success at political fundraising.

In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush's labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the "fight to save unborn lives," a vigorous struggle against "big labor bosses" and a crippling of "liberal politics in the country."

That's not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however. Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 -- or 1 percent -- was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less -- $151,236 -- on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets.

Instead, most of the donations were channeled back into new fundraising efforts, and some were used to provide a modest but steady source of income for Chavez and four family members, who served as treasurers and consultants to the committees. Much of the remaining funds went to pay for expenses such as furniture, auto repairs and insurance, and rent for the Sterling office the groups share. Even Chavez's health insurance was paid for a time from political donations.

"I guess you could call it the family business," Chavez said in an interview.

It's all perfectly legal, and Ms. Chavez says she's done nothing wrong. But still you wonder why a business that cranks out all these fund-raising letters and rakes in all the cash would be spending it on political activities as opposed to what could charitably be called "administrative fees." As the article points out, Ms. Chavez and her husband and kids got paid handsomely for their efforts, the telemarketers they hired kept most of the cash they collected, and not a whole lot went to the causes they were so anxious to support on behalf of the people they hit up for the donations.

Over the past five years, Chavez's family members have been directly paid $261,237 from the PACs, according to FEC reports. In 2001, the PACs paid Christopher Gersten $77,190, her son Pablo $25,344 and her son David $9,687.

Chavez and her immediate family members also earned income from executive positions they held in their nonprofit foundations, such as One Nation Indivisible and Stop Union Political Abuse. Her salary from her Center for Equal Opportunity foundation ranged from $125,000 to $136,250 between 1997 and 2003 and was $70,313 in 2004, the last year for which records are available.

The foundation paid her son David $83,200 in 2004 as its vice president for development. From 1998 to 2001, Christopher Gersten was paid $64,000 a year from another family foundation, the Institute for Religious Values.

Nice work if you can get it.

Meanwhile the suckers donors to the PAC's are unaware of just where their money is going.

Several of those who donated to the Pro-Life Campaign Committee, run by Pablo Gersten, said they were surprised to learn how little of the money was spent where they expected. David Barnes, 45, a typesetter from Williston, Tenn., gave the group $500 in February 2006, figuring "the money would go to back candidates who are pro-life."

"I'm appalled," Barnes said. "I try to be a responsible giver. I'm aware that with many charities you have to be careful. I knew better. I contributed based on an outward appearance and didn't do my homework."

While the family seems to have the magic touch when it comes to fund-raising, they're not so hot at a regular job. For a while after the Clinton administration came into office, they ran a Mexican restaurant in suburban D.C.; Linda would be a pundit on TV during the day and run the cash register at night. The restaurant went belly-up, so they got back into the fund-raising business again, this time going milking the partial-birth abortion fad and shaking down more donors via hard-core telemarketing. (In Kansas they were so aggressive that they got the attention of the authorities.) And again they seemed to be much better at raising money for the telemarketers than they were for their "causes" or for themselves.

Like I said, there was a time when families went into politics because they sensed a higher calling to service. In the case of Linda Chavez, however, her idea of service -- when it wasn't with a side of guacamole -- was serving herself and her checking account.