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Issues/News>
Deseret News: Foes Criticize Cannon...
April 28, 2008
Deseret News: Foes Criticize Cannon over use of staffers
PROVO — The axiom is old, tried and truer than ever. Win
election to the U.S. House of Representatives and your
re-election campaign begins at the same time as your
two-year term.
The incumbent pressure created by that short cycle has
produced a political system where congressional staffers
also work on campaigns. Ethics rules don't allow staff
members to work on campaigns while on congressional time or
to use congressional resources, so staffers either join the
campaign as unpaid volunteers or take a separate paycheck
from the campaign, too.
Paying his staff to work for his office and his campaign
has Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, under fire from two
Republican challengers as the May 10 state GOP convention
nears.
Cannon earned a sixth term in Congress in November 2006 but
knew less than two months later that he would be challenged
in 2008 by Jason Chaffetz, the former campaign manager and
chief of staff for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Former Juab County
Attorney David Leavitt joined the race in May 2007.
Nearly a year later, Chaffetz and Leavitt are criticizing
Cannon's long practice of paying several congressional
staffers to help with his campaign effort, though a
University of Utah political scientist said the practice is
common and acceptable if not abused.
Nathan Rathbun, Megan Faulkner Brown and Ryan Frandsen are
among those who have doubled as congressional and campaign
staffers for Cannon. Rathbun has averaged $30,000 a year as
a regular staffer and $25,000 a year as a campaign manager
for the past three years. Frandsen is a field coordinator
for the congressional office but this year has added duties
that essentially make him Cannon's new campaign manager.
Chaffetz and Leavitt said they, if elected, would run
Utah's 3rd Congressional District office differently.
"I think every taxpayer should be outraged their tax
dollars are going to staffers who were working on a
congressional campaign," Chaffetz said. "There's an ethical
wall and you're not supposed to be on both sides of it.
That's why there's a wall. It's a huge conflict of
interest. There's supposed to be a distinguishing
difference between campaign staff and congressional staff.
"I saw this up close and personal when I worked for the
governor. I know how poorly (Cannon's) congressional office
is run. This is one of the things they do that is
fundamentally wrong. There should be no taxpayer support
for a congressional campaign. When you use congressional
staffers to work on a campaign, you're stepping over the
line."
Leavitt said people in the district often notice Cannon
staffers campaigning for Cannon while handing out business
cards that say they are part of his office staff.
"I know that it's completely inappropriate to be paying for
government and paying for campaigning," Leavitt said. "And
I know his staffers speak for him on the campaign stump.
"They have a hand in each till."
Cannon's chief of staff, Joe Hunter, defended the practice,
saying he is following the advice of the House Ethics
Committee that compensating staffers for campaign work is
appropriate.
"We absolutely are doing above and beyond the norm in being
transparent and ethical in how we do it," he said. "The way
Chris insists we do it is if a person on the congressional
staff moves over to the campaign to do work or to a lesser
extent is involved significantly in the campaign, the
campaign compensates them for that work. We do that in
order to make absolutely certain there is no crossing of
the wall between the two functions and operations."
Chaffetz criticized Hunter for fielding questions about the
issue.
"The mere fact you're talking to the chief of staff about
the campaign is in itself wrong," Chaffetz said. The chief
of staff shouldn't be talking about the campaign at all."
The criticism has Cannon considering some changes, Hunter
said. "The one thing that we are doing is keeping closer
track of time (staffers spend on the campaign). I don't
think we were failing in that regard. We have always
revisited it every month, and I'm clear about it."
Another criticism was the amount of money Hunter, Rathbun
and others received from the campaign to reimburse them for
phone bills. The House Ethics Committee recommends that
campaigns reimburse for travel expenses only.
"We're looking at that right now," Hunter said. "We may do
that differently. I'm not saying we were doing it wrong.
Our first priority is transparency. This story wouldn't
even be possible if we weren't transparent. Everything we
do is public record."
Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley
Institute of Politics, said paying congressional staffers
for their campaign work improves transparency.
"In general it's pretty common that senators and
representatives have staff who volunteer their time or get
paid to work essentially a second job helping with
campaigns," Jowers said. "It's especially true in the House
where in a two-year election cycle, you're always working
on the next campaign. Every representative does it
differently, it seems. Some have a lot of volunteer hours
and that's very hard for the public and press to see what
is going on. Many pay a few of their staff so they can
consistently rely on them to get what they need done."
For Jowers, the bigger issue is making sure staffers put in
"a legitimate day's work for a legitimate day's pay.
"For example, it would be very difficult for a chief of
staff to also work full-time for the campaign," Jowers
said. "The numbers in the Cannon office do not make me
concerned. The concern is when you see one amount really
disproportionate to what someone should be making, because
then you wonder if they're compensating for more than the
purported reason, giving an illegal bonus."
Battling an established incumbent who can use his staffers
to work on his campaign, albeit on their own time or at the
campaign's expense, is a clear frustration for challengers,
Jowers said.
"The advantages of incumbency are immense," he added.
"That's why we have a plus-95 percent re-election rate in
the House. As a challenger, every one of those advantages
makes you want to pull your hair out. It's easier to raise
money if you're the incumbent, and you have other ways to
get in front of people. The list goes on and on."
Article written by Tad Walch, appearing in the Deseret News
4/28/08. E-mail: twalch@desnews.com
(Tip of the day: Jason's last name is pronounced "Chay-fits")
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