In California politics, corruption is legal as long as the forms are filled out correctly.
For Rep. Maxine Waters, it’s an art form. The Los Angeles congresswoman has long allowed her name to be used in a political advertising business run by her daughter. Karen Waters and her company, Progressive Connections, manage a lucrative piece of political mail known as a “slate mailer.”
If you’re a registered voter in California, you’ve seen slates like these in your mailbox. They’re designed to look like thoughtful recommendations from an organization that aligns with your interests. In reality, the candidates and ballot measure campaigns featured on the slate paid to be there, the same way they’d pay for a billboard or a television commercial. It’s advertising.
A cleverly designed slate mailer gives the impression that it’s from police, or firefighters, or taxpayer advocates, or senior advocates, or feminists or fisherman or whatever group would make a targeted voter look at the mail and say, “Oh, I should take this to the polls with me so I know how to vote.”
It’s kind of slimy. The mailer could be telling you to vote in a way that will achieve the exact opposite of what it appears to be favoring.
If you’d like to see how much money candidates and campaigns have paid to be on these things, go to cal-access.sos.ca.gov and look for the link to “Campaign finance.” Then find the link for “Committees, Parties, Major Donors & Slate Mailers.” Under “Type,” tap the circle next to “Slate Mailers.”
They’re listed alphabetically, from “Affordable Housing Alliance Political Action Committee” to “Your Community Voter Guide.” Did you receive a “COPS” voter guide? Click the link for “Cops Voter Guide, Inc.” and under “View Information,” choose “Electronic Filings.” There you’ll see the Form 498 filings that keep the company on the right side of the law. I clicked one at random and found that Judge David Walgren was charged $14,310 for the “support” of the Cops Voter Guide.
Judge Walgren had genuine endorsements from the Southern California News Group editorial board, Metropolitan News-Enterprise and former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, but the slate mailer was delivered to mailboxes. That advertising was worth $14,310 to the judge’s campaign for re-election, far less than the cost of a separate mailer in a county with 5.9 million registered voters.
This is all legal and perfectly fine, if you don’t mind the fakery about the mailer being from “cops.” What would not have been fine is retaliation against a candidate who chose not to buy the advertising. For example, if a slate mailer published a “We oppose Walgren” message as revenge for the failure to pay $14,310 to be on the slate, that would be a big problem.
Maxine Waters may have a big problem.
In the June primary campaign, the slate mailer from Waters’ campaign committee, titled “Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ Sample Ballot and Voter Recommendations,” included a recommendation to vote “No” on Measure CPT, a $360 million bond for the Compton Unified School District.
“Why?” asked L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez. “No one paid to oppose it,” reported Matt Hamilton, an investigative journalist with L.A. Material.
Waters has not stated a reason that her campaign committee’s slate mailer opposed the bond, but now lawyers are involved.
“Waters’ lawyer told me that no candidate or ballot measure will be paying in connection with this mailer, despite the mailer stating now that candidates paid,” Hamilton wrote in an online post.
There are no Form 498 filings for the Waters slate mailer on the Cal-Access site, because Rep. Waters runs this operation through her federal congressional campaign committee. Thanks to an advisory opinion from the Federal Election Commission back in 2004, the Waters slate mailer can accept political advertising for California races but does not have to file campaign finance reports with California authorities. Filings related to the slate are part of the FEC reports of the congressional campaign committee, “Citizens for Waters.”
California campaigns, however, have to report their expenditures in their own state campaign finance filings. So if it’s true that “no candidate or ballot measure will be paying” to be on the “Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ Sample Ballot and Voter Recommendations” slate, the campaigns featured on the mailer should show no expenditures for that advertising on their California Form 460 campaign finance reports. Similarly, they would have to disclose any refunds received. If it’s true.
Campaign finance law in California is wildly complex. The Fair Political Practices Commission’s “Campaign Disclosure Manual 7” is 56 pages just on slate mailer organizations. Rep. Waters has not had to comply with any of that, because she runs her slate mailer through her federal committee.
But the Federal Election Commission has its own rules about advertising disclosures and campaign finance, and Waters’ campaign committee has run afoul of them before. Last year, Citizens for Waters was fined $68,000 for understating contributions and expenditures in its 2020 campaign as well as accepting $19,000 in over-the-limit contributions and unlawfully spending $7,000 from a petty cash fund.
However, it doesn’t seem to be illegal to enrich family members through a political campaign committee. In 2022, Fox Business reported, “Karen Waters and her company, Progressive Connections, have received over $1 million in payments from Rep. Waters’ campaign since 2003 for organizing slate-mailing operations to bolster her mother’s re-election.”
Contributions to federal candidates are limited by law, but paying the same campaign committee to be included on a slate mailer somehow doesn’t count toward those limits. Waters has skillfully exploited this distinction to raise a lot of money for her campaigns by persuading other candidates and campaigns to pay her committee for advertising.
Why did her slate mailer urge a “No” vote on Compton Measure CPT if nobody paid for the “No” recommendation?
Whatever the reason, it may have backfired. On Thursday, Measure CPT was on track to pass, with 58% of voters saying “Yes.”
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley