Sending out mailers isn't normally a six-figure job-- unless you happen to be the daughter of California Democrat Maxine Waters.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on Sunday that Maxine Waters is committed to paying her daughter $108,952.15 to send out 200,000 mailers during the next election cycle. According to Federal Election Committee (FEC) filings, Rep. Waters' daughter has raked in roughly $650,000 running her mother's slate mailer operation since 2006.
Slate mailers are sent out by elected legislators to endorse another candidate running for office.
Who knew sending out junk mail could be so lucrative?
Karen Waters is responsible for distributing 200,000 "Citizens for Waters" mailers to voters in Los Angeles, where the California congresswoman enjoys considerable popularity. In 2016, Citizens for Waters raked in roughly $300,000 from slate mailer endorsements, with $65,287 of that amount going to the congresswoman's daughter. Recent FEC filings indicate Karen Waters is slated to receive $108,952.15 for her role in distributing the mailers.
Once the congresswoman's daughter receives the payment, she will have earned $750,000 over the course of eleven years-- for essentially sending out mass quantities of junk mail.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the mailers feature quotes from Maxine Waters about the candidates she supports, as well as a sample voting ballot.
One politician who has benefited from the slate mailers in the past is Kamala Harris, who won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2016. Harris paid Citizens for Waters campaign committee $30,000 for Maxine's endorsement during her senate run. Harris also paid the committee $28,000 for an endorsement during her state attorney general campaign in 2010.
Maxine Waters' mailer campaign caught attention of watchdog groups
Waters' slate mailing operation first caught the attention of state and national watchdog groups in 2010, after Rep. Waters was ordered to stand trial before the Congressional Ethics Office after a suspicious meeting with executives at OneUnited Bank. Waters' husband sat on the bank's board of directors when the struggling bank received a massive infusion of TARP funds.
This bailout prevented her husband's stock from becoming worthless.
This incident resulted in closer scrutiny of Rep. Waters' campaign operations. In August of 2010, the group CalWatchdog reported on the slate mailer payments to Karen Waters, calling them "unseemly."
Those sentiments were also shared by Art Levine, a journalist for The American Prospect. While Levine admitted that the payments to Karen Waters were lawful, he stated in 2010 that “there is something unseemly in the way the Waters family uses her political clout to advance its financial interests.”
