Rep. Maxine Waters paid around $8,000 in funds from her campaign to her daughter in the 2nd quarter of 2023, continuing a trend that has gone on for decades.

Waters' campaign has paid Karen Waters more than $1.2 million since 2003, allegedly for slate mailer services, "administrative services," "fundraising," and "rally expenses."

It isn't technically illegal to pay family members with campaign funds if the services were legitimately performed, but it is frowned on by ethics experts.

If family members are paid, the amounts are supposed to be at "fair market value," but that can be difficult to determine.

A history of iffy dealings

Slate mailings, the main service Karen Waters supposedly provided, are not all that common among federal politicians in California. Waters was reportedly the only federal politician to used them in the 2020 general election.

Then, in 2022, Waters paid her daughter $88,500 as a "slate mailer management fee." How necessary was that, really?

Even as far back as 2010, Waters' actions had been under scrutiny. She was charged in 2010 by the House Ethics Committee for trying to arrange a meeting in 2008 between Treasury Department officials and representatives for OneUnited, a bank her husband, Sid Williams, was a former board member for and in which he still owned stock.

Waters was cleared in 2012, but the investigators said at the time that her chief of staff Mikael Moore, "did take actions in Congress in an attempt to help the bank and violated standards of conduct."

More oversight needed

"There’s virtually zero oversight into politicians self-enriching themselves and their families," Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) previously told the Washington Examiner.

Nehls co-sponsored the FIRE Act last year. The measure would block lawmakers from using campaigns to pay family members.

Waters isn't the only one under scrutiny for paying family members with campaign funds.

There were multiple ethics complaints about "Squad" member Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) earlier this year over her payments to security professional Cortney Merritts after she married Merritts in February in a private wedding ceremony.

It's likely that some sort of legislation is needed to prevent these payments from occurring, since there is a lot of gray area for fraud and corruption.

Chances are, politicians have been taking full advantage of the "gray area" for a long time now, and they're going to keep doing it as long as it's not illegal.