U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters' family members have made more than $1 million in the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that the influential congresswoman has helped.
In varied ways, they have capitalized on clout she accumulated in a 28-year career as an elected official who built her power base among African Americans in South Los Angeles into a national platform.
Daughter Karen Waters has charged candidates for spots on her mother's "slate mailer," a sample ballot that many voters in South Los Angeles use to guide their choices.
She also has been paid by a nonprofit organization she and her mother set up, funded in part by special interests her mother helps in Washington, that throws parties her mother hosts at Democratic conventions.
Waters' husband has collected fees for opening doors with his wife's political allies on behalf of a bond firm seeking government business.
Son Edward Waters has shared in the slate mailer proceeds and has occasionally worked as a consultant to campaigns his mother supported.
The Waterses are a twist on a growing and unregulated trend in which relatives of members of Congress are paid by people receiving the members' help at home, in Washington or, in some cases, abroad. Over the last year and a half, The Times has identified five House members and seven senators whose family members have worked for clients that benefited from the lawmakers' official actions.
They included two sons and a son-in-law of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the newly named minority leader, who in 2002 introduced legislation to free up public land in Nevada that benefited their lobbying clients.
In another case, the daughter of U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) wound up with $1 million worth of contracts as a rookie lobbyist, while her father tried to use his office to help her clients, including a struggling Russian aerospace company seeking U.S. contracts to build a flying saucer.
The practice has accelerated as tougher ethics laws make it harder to offer favors directly to members of Congress.
The Waters family is a variation on this theme, making money not only because of Waters' power in Washington but because of the way she uses her local political clout.
Rep. Waters said her family's business interests are separate from her congressional activities and declined to do a detailed interview for this article.
