Steve King employs family as year-round campaign staff, an unusual approach in Congress

Jason Noble
The Des Moines Register

U.S. Rep. Steve King employs his son and daughter-in-law as full-time campaign staffers, and has paid them more than $805,000 since 2004, records show.

Although typically legal, an arrangement paying close family members year-round for congressional campaign work for more than a decade is unusual in several respects, experts said.

While holding various campaign manager and chairman titles, King’s son, Jeff King, has received a steady paycheck dating to at least 2004, the earliest year for which electronic records are available from the Federal Election Commission.

Congressman Steve King speaks to supporters during the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, during the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Steve King, a Republican representing Iowa’s 4th District, was first elected in 2002. In an interview with The Des Moines Register on Monday, he defended the arrangement by saying it allowed him to run cheaper campaigns and provide additional services to constituents.

“There’s no possible way that I could hire somebody off the street that could do what those two do, let alone have the family loyalty that goes along with it,” King said.

Over the years, Jeff King’s salary has ranged from around $30,000 to more than $60,000 annually, and has included lump-sum bonus payments in addition to twice-monthly paychecks. Jeff King’s wife, Lindsay King, has been paid for work as an office assistant, office manager and data entry clerk since 2010, typically drawing an annual salary of nearly $30,000.

Because Jeff and Lindsay King are being paid for campaign work, they’re not collecting any taxpayer dollars; the funds come from Steve King’s political donors.

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Candidates and members of Congress face few limits on how they spend such contributions. Campaign finance law prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal use or the use of a family member, but does not explicitly bar them from employing themselves or family members.

Whether such arrangements are legal and ethical turn on two questions, campaign finance experts said: whether the younger Kings are actually doing work in exchange for the salaries they’re receiving, and whether those salaries match the market rate for campaign duties.

“Is this a job that they’re qualified for, that they’re doing and doing well, and being paid the going rate for?” asked Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

If so, Libowitz said, such an arrangement is likely legal under Federal Election Commission rules. After hearing a brief explanation of the Kings’ arrangements, Libowitz said the dollar amounts are within the going rate for campaign services.

King said Monday he believed the salaries paid to his son and daughter-in-law were likely below market rate and represented a bargain for his campaign operation. 

“My style here, my management process, is effective," King said. "I don’t know who gets re-elected with less money than I do."

On at least one occasion, Jeff King performed outside political work while still drawing checks from his father’s campaign. Federal records show the younger King received more than $32,000 from Sept. 13, 2015, to Feb. 5, 2016, from Keep the Promise I, an independent group backing then-presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

During that same period, Jeff King was paid $27,000 by his father's re-election committee for his work as the campaign chairman.

Jeff King’s involvement with Keep the Promise as a consultant was reported by CNN in August 2015. The records show he was paid for “voter contact services” and reimbursed for mileage. The group later changed its name to the Make America Number 1 PAC.

When asked whether his son was still working for the campaign as he took on the super PAC responsibilities, King was indignant. 

“I manage this. I’m in charge of it," King said of his campaign. "I don’t need to answer these kind of questions." 

He also said, "I make sure everybody does their job around me. If there’s any complaint about it, it’s that I work people too hard.”

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Still, campaign finance expert Brendan Fischer, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, questioned the regular, twice-monthly payments Jeff King in particular has received regardless of the election calendar.

“That strikes me as a red flag,” Fischer said. “The fact that he’s paid a significant amount in election years and non-election years certainly looks like an indication that he is being paid for more than the services actually provided to the campaign.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, right, waits alongside Iowa congressman Steve King before being introduced to supporters at the Crossroads Shooting Sports gun shop on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, in Johnston, Iowa.

King arrangements atypical in Iowa

A review of campaign finance data from Iowa’s three other congressmen and candidates from 2014 and 2016 suggests the salaries paid to Jeff and Lindsay King are atypical in their amount and frequency and in the fact that they’re paid to family members.

Indeed, U.S. Reps. Rod Blum and Dave Loebsack have spent less on their entire campaign payrolls over the last four and a half years than Steve King has spent on Jeff and Lindsay King alone.

Steve King's 4th District routinely poses the least competitive congressional race in Iowa. 

Jeff King has received $277,000 since January 2013. Lindsay King has been paid $125,000 during that time.

Congressman Steve King speaks on his cellphone outside at Old Main Brewing Company in Ames on Friday, May 6, 2016.

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The next highest-paid congressional campaign staffer in Iowa was Loebsack campaign manager Nick Clarksen, who earned $115,000 from 2013 to 2016.

Most top campaign aides were employed by candidates for a period of months leading up to each biennial election — not on an ongoing basis — and received around $50,000 in total compensation for their work.

In both 2015 and 2016, Jeff King was paid more than $62,000 for his role as campaign chairman, plus a $10,000 payment described in filings as a “victory and year-end bonus.” Through the first six months of 2017, a year in which Steve King is not standing for re-election, Jeff King has been paid more than $32,000 by the campaign, and Lindsay King has received more than $16,000.

Federal records also indicate just one other member of Congress in Iowa has paid a family member for campaign work since 2013: Blum once paid $540.30 to his son, Taylor, for “administrative consulting.”

Among unsuccessful candidates, only Jim Mowrer, the Democrat who challenged King in 2014 and then ran against 3rd District U.S. Rep. David Young in 2016, paid family members for campaign work. In 2013 and 2014, Mowrer paid himself about $25,000 from his campaign account for salary and health insurance reimbursements. In 2015 and 2016, Mowrer’s campaign paid his wife, Chelsey, about $47,000.

It’s not unheard of for candidates to pay family members, experts said, particularly in their first bid for office or in safe seats where incumbents rarely face competitive re-election contests. It can get lawmakers in trouble, however.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is under federal scrutiny for possibly using campaign funds for personal expenses. Earlier this year the FBI raided the office of his campaign treasurer seeking evidence in the investigation.

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., resigned from Congress in 2012 and later pleaded guilty to federal charges related to using campaign funds for personal expenses.

'Appearance of impropriety'

Even if King’s payments to his son and daughter-in-law don’t violate election law, campaign finance experts Libowitz and Fischer agreed they may give off the appearance of impropriety.

“If a candidate is using campaign funds to subsidize their family’s lifestyle, the money looks less like a campaign contribution and looks more like a bribe,” Fischer said. “A campaign contribution poses a much greater risk of corruption if it’s used for one’s personal benefit versus getting one’s message out to voters.”

Short of an outright violation, though, accountability lies solely with the people who contributed the money to the candidate in the first place.

“If donors were unhappy with the fact that he employs family members, they could stop giving,” Libowitz said.