Rep. Maxine Waters’ campaign committee, is in a massive amount of debt after failing to pay for an enormous mail campaign for the California Democrat. However, the owner of that mail firm is none other than Maxine Waters’ own daughter.
Karen Waters, the daughter of Rep. Waters, has been paid more than $650,000 for her company to run Maxine’s mail outreach operation, and is even on the payroll of the Citizens for Waters Campaign Committee.
In her most recent financial disclosures, Citizens for Waters, is in massive debt to multiple vendors, service providers and consultants – over $124,000. A majority of this debt, $88,000, is owed directly to Karen Waters’ mailing company, for services rendered to her mother’s political operation.
On top of this, Karen Waters had received $11,000 from the committee in the last 4 months alone.
Candidates of the committee must pay the Citizens for Waters from their own campaign committees to appear on their slate mailer. If a candidate is running for the political office and does not directly pay Waters’ campaign committee, they must then credit their own campaigns with some in-kind contributions from the Waters.
The slate mailers are sent to nearly 200,000 constituents in the South Central Los Angeles region only, where Representative Waters has considerable clout. The mailers also consist of an “official sample ballot” with quotes from Waters about the candidates and issues that she supports and might interest the one receiving the mails.
All along the 2016 election cycle, Waters has received nearly 20 payments amounting to $300,000 for endorsing candidates in its mailers. Senator Kamala Harris has given the Waters campaign $63,000 to appear on the endorsement mailer during the year 2010, and 2016 electoral campaign.
Slate mailers operations, which have come under heavy scrutiny, are fairly common in the states of California and Oregon. However, Waters appears to be the only member of Congress to run a slate mailer operation from their federal committee.