Joel On The Road

By Joel Thurtell

JoAnn Watson has had enough.

So have I — enough of her holier-than-thou chatter.

The Detroit city councilwoman was upset that the city’s law department hired two lawyers to help besieged Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick keep the council from ousting him.

“It’s outrageous to the nth degree,” Watson told a Detroit Free Press reporter.

I agree that public officials need to be careful about how they spend taxpayer money. But I’m not thinking of the pay that will go to compensate Kwame’s lawyers at $300 an hour.

No, no. I’m thinking back a few years to 2003, when Watson wasn’t outraged to any degree as she campaigned for her council seat while still collecting her federally-funded paycheck as a legislative aide to

U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. in the congressman’s Detroit office.

That’s right, until April 29, 2003, Watson was cashing congressional paychecks from her $46,382-a-year federal job supposedly helping Conyers serve constituents. But for much of that spring she was actually on the stump to win her council seat.

Not only that, but Conyers himself was working on her behalf. He assigned legislative aides not only from Detroit, but staffers from his Washington, D.C. office and lawyers from the House Judiciary Committee to do campaign work for Watson and others of his politic al proteges on office time.

Conyers was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for ordering staffers to do campaign work on congressionally-paid time, because that is a violation of House ethics rules and may well be illegal.

Eventually, in 1996, the Ethics Committee let him off the hook.

How do I know these things? Why, they were published in the Detroit Free Press. It happens that I was the reporter assigned along with two others to report and write the Nov. 21, 2003 stories that prompted the ethics panel to look into Conyers. It was our report that triggered the Ethics Committee investigation.

The Free Press report revealed that “staffers for the (then) 19-term Democrat told the Free Press they have used government telephones, printers, fax machines and mailing lists to solicit campaign contributions, organize fund-raisers and canvass for votes.”

“It is illegal to raise political funds from any federal office,” we wrote.

Our report was “based on extensive interviews with six current and former Conyers aides, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, and Enid Brown, a Conyers volunteer who said she took notes at a campaign strategy session attended by Conyers and staff members in his downtown Detroit office. The Free Press also examined congressional payroll and campaign finance records, and schedules and internal records for Conyers’ office.

In the article, we quoted House Judiciary Committee attorney Burton Wides denying Conyers did anything wrong.

“Conyers was not available for an interview,” we wrote.

Since those articles were published, a major source for them has gone on the record. She is Deanna Maher, now retired and living in Holland, Mich., but then chief of staff of Conyers’ Downriver office in Southgate.

According to our story, which I have republished in this blog with Free Press permission, “The two-month investigation found that many members of Conyers’ staff, as well as at least one Judiciary Committee employee who reports to him, campaigned on government time without keeping track of their time as required by House rules.”

I’m going to quote extensively from our Nov. 21, 2003 article, because much of it focused on the effort Conyers was making to help his protege, Watson, defeat City Council President Gil Hill. Most of that effort, according to our inside sources, was being made on government-paid staff time.

It’s worth keeping this information in mind when the woman who unseated Gil Hill while cashing federal paycheks rants about improper spending of public funds.

According to our story, “Conyers staffers and Judiciary Committee aides worked (in spring 2003) on the Detroit City Council campaign of Watson, a Conyers aide, well-known city activist and radio talk show host.

“On April 18, Conyers attended a lengthy meeting in his downtown Detroit office to plot strategy for Watson’s race against City Council President Gil Hill, said Enid Brown, a private investigator volunteering for Conyers, and others who attended the meeting.

“At the meeting, Conyers asked 10 staffers, Judiciary Committee staff attorney Lillian German and Brown to help find information that could be used against Hill, they said. German had ben hired earlier that month.

“Conyers raised two issues himself, about a loan to Hill from Hill’s wife and Hill’s role on a city pension board that had lost money.

“Brown, who lives in Franklin, said Conyers asked her to find out whether the loan was legal and for more information on the pension issue.

“Conyers knew Brown had done research on the pension issue. Brown said she joined the discussion because she respects Conyers. But although she’s seen Conyers’ aides do legitimate constituent work on their own time, she said she thought his staff should not be working on the Watason campaign on work time and in his office.

” ‘I don’t know if there is any proof of a crime, but there was a discussion of a campaign issue by people on the clock,’ Brown said. Wides said the meeting was to discuss possible ballot fraud in the upcoming election, which he said was an issue of interest to the Judiciary Committee.

“Brown and others at the meeting said the participants, besides Conyers, were German and Watson, and staff members Carol Patton, Joel Segal and Glenn Osowski, aides in Conyers’ Washington office; (Detroit office Chief of Staff Ray) Plowden; Deanna Maher, chief of staff in Conyers’ Downriver office; Karen Morgan, Conyers’ Detroit press secretary, and Marian Brown, Barbara Herard, Christian Thornton and Alexia Smokler of the Detroit office.

“All were paid members of Conyers’ staff at the time of the meeting, according to congressional disbursement records.”

I’ll interrupt this quotation here to note that Maher, the Downriver chief of staff mentioned above, was my primary unnamed source for this story. She has since retired and gone on the record.

Now back to the story:

“The records also show Watson never took an unpaid leave to campaign for her new job and, in fact, collected her $46,382-a-year congressional staff salary until the day she was sworn in as a council member. Watson declined to comment.

“Plowden said he and Watson talked about her duties when she entered the race and agreed that she would continue working 20 hours a week for Conyers while she ran for the City Council.

“U.S. House ethics rules state that part-time employees may engage in campaign activities, ‘provided the time spent on both official and campaign activities is carefully documented.’

“Wides, Conyers’ legal counsel, said Watson campaigned on her own time while working 20 hours a week during the City Council primary campaign. He said Watson then took vacation and comp time to campaign for the general election and keep her paycheck coming.

“He declined to provide documentation.

“Plowden said Watson worked regular hours in the office answering phones and writing letters to constituents. Former and current staff members said Watson was rarely seen in the office.”

Contradictions by the bosses, but bottom line: Watson kept on cashing her government paychecks.

Next time Watson gets outraged “to the nth degree,” keep in mind how she managed to mute her indignation as a political candidate subsidized by federal pay.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com