Congress made it easy for Jacksons to loot campaign fund
There’s a reason Jesse Jackson Jr. and Sandi Jackson were able to get away with looting the congressman’s campaign fund of $750,000 over seven years.
Congress long ago stripped the agency assigned with overseeing its members’ campaign funds of its power, and, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, if there’s another congressman doing the same thing, it’s nearly impossible to find out, short of a criminal probe.
“They made it so it’s nearly impossible to root this thing out. There are no random audits. There are no checks,” Melanie Sloan, the group’s executive director, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Everything can be a lie. As long as your forms look pretty, as long as you use the magic words and file in a timely manner,” you’re in compliance, she said.
Because the Federal Election Commission is not allowed to do random audits, as it once was able to, she said, there is no fear of having to turn over receipts to corroborate expenditures. The FEC must have cause to investigate a campaign fund, such as someone filing a complaint or a fund with a history of issues.
Federal election rules prohibit congressmen from dipping into campaign money for personal use. But last month, Jackson and his wife, a former Chicago alderman who was also on his campaign payroll, pleaded guilty to indulging in a lifestyle way beyond their means by using campaign money and disguising the expenditures as legitimate campaign expenses.
That included spending more than $5,000 on four fur coats in one day, dropping $43,000 on a Rolex watch, taking trips to Disney World and Martha’s Vineyard as well as buying Michael Jackson, Bruce Lee and Martin Luther King Jr. memorabilia.
Before he resigned last fall, Jackson was a 17-year congressman who raised money easily. His popularity meant he rarely needed to campaign. Still, he routinely drew down his campaign account. Charges unveiled last month showed the couple used the money to rehab their second home — in Washington, D.C., — and even buy toilet paper, toothpaste and underwear.
After the couple’s guilty pleas, Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said the Jacksons went out of their way to hide their behavior, making it tougher to detect.
But he also described a couple who found it easy to dupe the system.
“The nature of this spending makes clear that this was not momentary lapse of judgment, this was not a short-streak of impulsive behavior. Over seven years, the Jackson engaged in over 3,100 transactions for their personal gain,” he said. “It is clear that Jesse Jackson became convinced that his campaign account could be used to satisfy his personal whim.”
In light of the Jackson episode, Sloan’s group is calling on Congress to beef up its regulations on how members are able to spend their money, including banning family members from being on the payroll.
Ironically, it was the Jacksons who paved the way for allowing family members on the campaign payroll after they got an FEC decision allowing Sandi Jackson to act as a campaign manager. She was paid $5,000 a month out of Jackson’s campaign fund.