Lawmaker Keeps Wife on Payroll

December 05, 2005

Lawmaker Keeps Wife on Payroll

Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) "has paid at least $505,000 in campaign funds to his wife for political consulting services since 1995," the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. "For the past five years she has run her unregistered business out of their condominium in Washington, D.C."

"It is illegal to spend campaign funds for personal use, but it is not illegal to use them to pay family members who provide 'bona fide services' at fair-market value. Still, election watchdogs question the way the Filners set up their arrangement."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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December 05, 2005