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Clinton staffers paid more to work on her campaign

Records show Sen. Hillary Clinton pays some full-time staffers up to $2,600 more each month

BY GLENN THRUSH | WASHINGTON BUREAU

November 3, 2005

WASHINGTON

With her election day still a year away, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is paying eight full-time Senate staffers as much as $2,600 in extra monthly wages to moonlight as campaign operatives, records show.

The "double-dipping" system is used by a handful of other senators, including Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.), but each of those campaigns makes such payments to only one or two staffers.

Clinton's $100,000-a-year communications director, Lorraine "Lorrie" McHugh Wytkind, received the highest stipend, garnering $2,600 during September from Clinton's re-election campaign, records show.

"I think the appearance is not good," said political finance expert Gene Russianoff, staff attorney with the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"How do you separate what's good for the candidate and what's good for the public?" he added. "It seems to just add to the power of incumbency and adds to the cynicism of voters."

Such double-dipping is legal under Senate and Federal Election Commission rules, as long as employees document hours spent on each job, experts say. And Clinton's spokesman says the split-payment system actually helps differentiate political from governmental work.

Still, legislative aides typically take unpaid leave from their government jobs and join campaigns as paid workers a few weeks or months before an election.

Clinton can afford to employ a standing army of dual-purpose aides thanks to a $15 million-plus war chest collected by Friends of Hillary, her re-election campaign, and HILLPAC, her political action committee.

Clinton's likely Republican opponent next year, Jeanine Pirro, raised only about $450,000 as of Oct. 1 and trails her by more than 20 points in most polls.

Politicians have often tried to augment their overworked employees' salaries. In 1952, Sen. Richard Nixon made his famous "Checkers" speech to defend his use of a business-funded $18,000 account to pay staffers for political work, according to former Federal Election Commission chairman Trevor Potter.

"Powerful, busy senators like Mrs. Clinton want to have good staff and a lot of staff because they have more demands on their offices than other senators," Potter said. Next week, for instance, the senator will be traveling to Israel to discuss security matters with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "But to use this practice as much as she does is unusual. She's paying multiple people and using two different campaign accounts and I haven't heard of that kind of thing before."

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said the former first lady consulted Senate Ethics Committee guidelines before approving the payments.

"Under these guidelines, the percentage paid is based on time spent on official and nonofficial business, including accompanying the senator to events," said Reines, whose $65,000 annual salary is bolstered by $2,000 a month in campaign payments.

Deputy press secretary Sarah Gegenheimer, who makes $90,000 a year, gets an additional $2,200 per month from the campaign as of September.

Clinton's Washington-based chief of staff Tamera Luzzatto draws a $135,000 paycheck from the Senate and received $1,740 more in September, split equally between HILLPAC and Friends of Hillary. Luzzatto's combined income from Clinton-related work, projected for a full year, is $156,000.

Karen Persichilli Keogh, Clinton's New York State director, gets $1,940 a month from Friends of Hillary to go with an $85,000-a-year Senate salary, according to third-quarter campaign filings. Three lower-level Clinton employees receive monthly stipends ranging from $670 to $1,650.

In addition, Friends of Hillary has been paying $2,187 per month in consulting fees to James Kennedy, a former spokesman who recently quit a $102,000-a-year job at Bill Clinton's presidential library.

Double dollars

Eight of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate staffers draw extra pay from her campaign. The top earners are:

Lorraine McHugh Wytkind, communications

director:

$100,000 salary

$2,600 monthly stipend from campaign

Sarah Gegenheimer,

deputy press secretary:

$90,000 salary

$2,200 monthly stipend

Tamera Luzzatto,

chief of staff:

$135,000 salary

$1,740 monthly stipend

SOURCES: FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS AND U.S. SENATE OFFICIAL PERSONNEL AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT