Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Under the current workings of the law, is a lawmaker allowed to do this?

Luis Gutierrez Paid His Wife Over $300,000 From Campaign Funds.
Gutierrez, who was first elected to Congress in 1993, brought his wife, Soraida Gutierrez, onto his campaign’s payroll six years ago to act as his office manager, treasurer, and fundraiser.
Soraida Gutierrez was a registered lobbyist in the state of Illinois from 2003 to 2009 before joining Gutierrez for Congress. She has since raked in more than $300,000 for her work on behalf of the committee while being the top recipient of campaign cash in three cycles since stepping into her role. 
The first time Soraida acted in an official capacity for the campaign, in 2010, she pulled in over $44,000 and was the top recipient of cash from the Gutierrez campaign that year. 
Soraida then pocketed over $93,000 in 2012, making her the biggest beneficiary of campaign funds for the second election cycle in a row. The committee disbursed $383,848 in 2012, so Soraida’s payments constituted roughly 25 percent of all campaign expenditures.
Soraida was yet again the top beneficiary of cash from Gutierrez for Congress during the 2014 election cycle, receiving $110,000. Herman Andrew, a vendor, was the second highest-paid individual at $24,000.  
Soraida has pocketed $65,000 during the 2016 election cycle to date. She has been paid a total of $312,000 from the Gutierrez for Congress campaign committee since 2010.

11 comments:

ndspinelli said...

He's from Chicago, that's SOP.

Methadras said...

I didn't even have to read the article to know that he's a big fat D.

AllenS said...

Maybe it's not illegal, if he's illegal.

ndspinelli said...

I always play this game in the analysis of the MSM, "Imagine if it were a Rep. Yesterday, a 10 term Congressman from Philly, Chaka Fattah, was convicted in Federal Court on ALL 23 counts of public corruption. Many of the counts involved pocketing money supposed to go to charities.

edutcher said...

The line is fine, to a certain extent. A lot of politicians have relatives work on campaigns and most of it is legal.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

AllenS.

Jim in St Louis said...

It is all fine by me. Donors are giving the money voluntarily, as long as there is nothing about public financing of the campaign or anything like that. Of course it should all be transparent and open, but I see no problem with it. More fool them for donating.

Chip Ahoy said...

The hag is speechifying.

She is programmed for inspirational speech and derision of non supporters.

Honest to God a holiday automaton is more interesting. A sentient being cannot endure a single full sentence. Not one. She is that repulsive. I tried three times.

Her staging is predictable and trite. She cannot ever stand on her own. Always the same red white and blue Norman Rockwell mise en scène. She must be seen in front of other people waving flags as pure prop. Into the trash on the way out. Each wearing their own earbuds cancelling out the Hillary audio torture and replacing it with something more pleasant like a Fidel Castro May Day diatribe. They're all drugged and imagining they're watching a Pokémon movie. Were the cameras to turn to the crowd then a gaggle of 25 or so reporters collected together with clothesline would show. But they don't dare show how small a crowd she attracts. Propaganda stylings from the 60's. Her gesticulations are Eva Perón except eva was actress and Hillary is wooden robot operated by spastic marionette. She is a pathetic , truly pathetic candidate.

Democrats, honestly, hang your heads in shame. This is the best you can do. Everyone laughs at you.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Without even looking it up, I bet he generally wins his generally election contest with 65-70% of the vote so WTF does he even need campaign funds.

I'm Full of Soup said...

He got only 78% in 2014 general election.

Synova said...

I donno. That 300K is over 6 years and if she actually does the work and it's a full time job, which it probably is, then 50K is probably not outrageous for a salary for a year. Not if she's actually full time, which fund-raising may be on the off years. If she's a 200K professional working the campaign for a few hours on weekends (at the obligatory parties and schmoozing) then... no.

So I'm unsure. It seems like a lot of candidates have campaign managers that are family members. Sometimes it seems pretty clearly that every first and second cousin are put on the payroll in some capacity and you're left wondering what responsibilities, exactly, Joe-Bob had.