Democratic Congressional candidate Mark Pera on Tuesday called upon Congressman Dan Lipinski to direct his staff to return to donors or contribute to charity the payments they received from a state political campaign fund controlled by Lipinski’s father — former Congressman and federal lobbyist William Lipinski.
According to the Daily Southtown (10/21 & 10/14) and the Chicago Sun-Times (10/07), Congressman Dan Lipinski’s chief of staff and director of communications collected $13,500 in consulting fees from the “All-American Eagles” fund — a state political campaign fund — during 2006 and 2007.
Making matters worse is the fact that William Lipinski misrepresented the fund as one that benefits charitable causes in a solicitation letter that was sent out in August (see attached).
Pera said the newspaper reports raise some troubling questions.
“Why are members of Congressman Dan Lipinski’s staff receiving income from his father — a lobbyist at both the state and federal levels? If Congressman Lipinski wasn’t aware of this relationship, he should have been. If he was, then why didn’t he move to end it?” Pera said.
“If this isn’t a violation of House ethics rules, it should be.”
In the interest of full disclosure, Congressman Dan Lipinski, the two staffers in question — Chief of Staff Jerry Hurckes and Director of Communications Christopher Ganschow — and William Lipinski should report exactly what kind of work they do for William Lipinski to merit these payments, Pera said.
It’s not uncommon for someone to be on the federal payroll and the campaign payroll–there are lots of examples around including Robert Gibbs who worked for both the Obama campaign and the Obama Senate office. While I’m not a huge fan of doing it, there is no real conflict of interest in such arrangements and the individual has to be careful to follow the law. Fair enough.
However, doing political work for a lobbyist’s PAC at the same time working for a Congressman is a very, very different thing. On top of that, there are all sorts of reimbursements to Hurckes for various things through the 23rd Ward Committee and All-American Eagles including my favorite priceless reimbursement from 1999:
Reimburse Clowns Fee Xmas Party
Are you saying the Lipinski clan is a bunch of clowns?
Or are you saying that they’re on the wrong side in the War on Christmas?
Discuss…
I think he’s saying that clowns are on the wrong side in the War on Christmas.
That is to say, it’s santa’s holiday (oh, and that jesus dude, I guess), not just any ordinary clown.