Senators Tap War Chests for Public Purposes

When Deputy White House Budget Director William M. Diefenderfer III found it hard to make ends meet last winter, he had no choice but to look for a job in private industry. His bosses never even considered tapping other sources to supplement his government paycheck. That clearly would have been illegal.

But when Jonathan E. Winer, legal counsel to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), ran into the same problem, the senator simply bolstered Winer’s $53,000-a-year government salary with money from the Kerry campaign war chest. As a result, Winer received an unofficial--but entirely legal--$12,000 raise.

Such are the ways of the U.S. Senate, the only branch of the federal government where the distinction between official duties and political activity is conspicuously--some say intentionally--blurred.

Under the Senate’s unique rules, it is not unusual for staffers to collect paychecks simultaneously from both the government and from their bosses’ campaign funds. Nor are they prohibited from conducting political fund-raising efforts on the taxpayers’ time--a practice that is also out of bounds for other government employees.

Critics say the fact that the rules are so hazy too often sparks confusion among Senate staffers about the degree to which their government-paid staff jobs and their bosses’ political machinery can be meshed. Indeed, to some, the Senate is the only place in government where tax dollars and campaign funds appear to be interchangeable.

“The fuzzing of the line between official work and campaign activity adds substance to the public perception that members of Congress care more about getting elected than working on behalf of their constituents,” says Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that is advocating ethics reform in Congress.

Even worse, knowledgeable insiders say the Senate’s lax rules sometimes provide an opportunity for unscrupulous aides to extort campaign contributions from people who are seeking favors from a senator--or, conversely, to deny the lawmaker’s assistance to those who decline to contribute.

Sources say the lax rules have played a role in the case involving Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N. Y.), who is under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee for allegedly promoting grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that benefited key campaign contributors.

And some analysts believe the “Keating Five” scandal stemmed from such laxity as well. In fact, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) cited these ambiguities in defending himself against allegations that he assisted Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. in exchange for campaign contributions.

In Cranston’s case, evidence showed that a lobbyist seeking assistance for Keating brought $250,000 in checks for voter registration efforts directly to the senator’s office. In addition, the senator’s chief fund-raiser, Joy Jacobson, routinely took part in meetings between Cranston and people who came seeking his support on legislative or policy matters.

Not even in the House, which has had its own share of ethics scandals in recent years, are the rules separating political and official activities that permissive. Although House employees occasionally have bent the rules, they are strictly prohibited from soliciting campaign funds or from spending those funds to carry out official duties.

Even so, most senators and their aides staunchly defend the Senate rules. William Canfield, a lawyer for the Senate Republican Conference, who previously worked for the Ethics Committee, insists that it is all but impossible to build a wall between political and official activities in Congress.

“I can’t imagine that there are not House staffers engaged in fund raising,” Canfield says. “It’s a rule that’s probably violated all the time.”

Still, the Senate is a case unto itself. Under most circumstances, federal law strictly prohibits the use of private funds for public purposes. The rule is intended to prevent government officials from seeking to carry out unauthorized policies--as occurred in the Iran-Contra scandal--and to keep them from being manipulated by outside benefactors.

Likewise, most government employees are prohibited from participating in political fund raising--on grounds that to do so could sow the seeds for a conflict of interest in which officials dispensed government favors in exchange for campaign contributions by those who were seeking help.

But when the Senate wrote its current ethics code in 1977, it exempted itself from such legal restrictions. Instead, senators decreed that it would be all right to use campaign funds for official purposes--on grounds that such expenditures are limited and subject to public disclosure.

The reasoning was that the rules already allowed wealthy senators to use their own personal funds to bolster the pay of their staffers. So it wouldn’t be much of a step further to permit lawmakers of more modest means to tap their campaign funds for the same purpose.

To help keep tabs on the process, the new code also permitted the senators to hire two people specifically to process unsolicited campaign checks. As originally drafted, the rule authorized them only to “receive, be the custodian of or distribute” the funds. But “solicit” was added a short time later, and the number of employees was increased to three.

Their work patterns are mixed. Of the many Senate employees whose pay comes in part from their bosses’ campaign funds, some actually perform work for the campaign. Others do virtually no campaign work and view their campaign pay as nothing more than a bonus for their Senate work.

Charles E. Harman, chief of staff to Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), received more than $32,000 in consulting fees and expenses from Nunn’s campaign treasury during the last six-year campaign cycle. Nunn’s campaign treasurer, Gordon Giffin, says the money is for advice that Harman provided during the campaign. Nunn was reelected last November with no opposition.

Likewise, last Dec. 19, shortly after he was reelected, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) rewarded 23 of his Senate employees with checks ranging from $400 to $6,000, drawn from his campaign war chest. Coming just six days before Christmas, the payments appear to have been a holiday bonus.

Tim McKeever, who was Stevens’ campaign treasurer, insists that the checks were not bonuses, but only that the staffers had not been paid for work they did during the campaign. “That’s just when we got around to it,” he says of the just-before-Christmas timing.

At the same time, Kerry’s counsel, Winer, freely admits that the raise drawn from the campaign fund was almost entirely for his official Senate duties. He says Kerry began paying him from the campaign fund after he threatened to leave for a better-paying job. The checks stopped earlier this year when Winer got an equivalent raise from the government.

Winer insists that receiving payments from Kerry’s campaign has had no effect on the way he carried out his official duties. “I can’t see the conflict of interest in it,” he says. “It’s pretty close to pure benefit for the public.”

As Winer explains it, junior senators who hold no subcommittee chairmanships often rely on campaign funds to supplement the salaries of their Senate staffers. Unlike senior senators, who do hold chairmanships, they are unable to use committee funds to supplement the salaries of the people on their personal Senate staff.

There is nothing to prevent Senate staffers from working for both the campaign and the government, as long as their campaign work is confined to weekends, lunch hours and after working hours. But many Senate employees leave the government payroll during election years in order to work on their bosses’ campaigns full time.

Moving back and forth between the campaign and government payrolls further blurs the line between the two, but those who do it suffer no loss of income or benefits. Their government health and pension benefits are normally maintained, and their old jobs are usually waiting for them when the campaign is over.

Defenders of this system assert that paying a staffer with campaign funds is no different than buying Senate office supplies with political contributions, which many senators do regularly. Kerry, for one, spent more than $40,000 of his campaign funds over the last six years to cover official Senate expenses that were not reimbursed by the government.

Under Senate rules, senators may not use government funds to cover certain routine office expenditures--such as coffee and doughnuts for the office, meals for constituents or an extra fax machine or two. Many senators use campaign funds to pay for these items.

For example, federal records show that both Nunn and Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) spent money from their campaign funds to buy refreshments for the Iran-Contra committee in 1987. And over the last six years, Nunn has used campaign funds to reimburse nearly 50 of his Senate employees for expenses.

In fact, most senators view their campaign chests as supplemental treasuries available to cover any unforeseen expenditure. As an aide to Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) explains: “People are always asking Al, ‘Why do you raise more than you spend every election?’ And he tells them, ‘So we can have a pool of money to draw from over the next six years.’ ”

To be sure, the Senate has not been totally oblivious to the conflicts problem. Last year, Congress enacted legislation that, beginning next Jan. 1, for the first time will prohibit senators from using campaign contributions to defray official expenses.

John L. Sousa, chief counsel for the Senate Rules Committee, contends that the new legislation will force senators “to draw a line” between campaign and official activities. But critics predict that senators will find a way to get around the new restrictions.

Indeed, even in the House, where employees are forbidden to solicit campaign contributions or receive checks from campaign war chests, some have found a way to circumvent the rule.

Over the last two years, Robert J. Sutcliffe, former administrative assistant to Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), has received $52,500 from Cox’s campaign fund to supplement his $82,500 annual government salary. At Cox’s request, the House Ethics Committee approved Sutcliffe’s unusually lucrative salary arrangement.

Likewise, by designating certain Senate employees to solicit and accept campaign funds, the Senate’s rules also help to enmesh policy-making and campaign activity.

In testimony before the Senate Ethics Committee earlier this year, Cranston pointed out that most of the Senate staffers who have been designated by their bosses to solicit contributions are the same people who “hold the keys to access” for anyone seeking assistance from the senator.

“Some of these staffers are their senators’ principal fund-raisers,” he said. “Some have enormous power to schedule, to expedite, to slow down, to draft and amend legislation and also to deal with the executive branch.”

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.), who as a member of the Senate Ethics Committee investigated the “Keating Five” scandal, argues that staffers who are paid with taxpayers’ funds should not be allowed to solicit contributions. Continuing to permit such practices “will lead to more confusion and may subject some staff to illegal behavior,” he says.

Helms recently proposed a bill that would prohibit Senate employees from soliciting campaign contributions. But Senate strategists say the measure is unlikely to pass--because most senators are convinced that the exemption is necessary.

Times researchers Murielle Gamache and Stephanie Grace contributed to this story.