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WASHINGTON — Embattled Kansas City Congresswoman Karen McCarthy asserted Friday that a campaign-financed trip to the Grammy Awards was proper and legal.
The five-term Democrat said she used campaign funds to attend the February ceremony in New York because she works with music-industry issues and many of her constituents are recording artists.
“I am perfectly within the law,” she said.
Former McCarthy staff members continue to call the Grammy trip a personal excursion, which would not be allowable under campaign funding rules. The itinerary included meals with famous music industry figures, including U2 lead singer Bono and Clive Davis, as well as a visit to the Museum of Modern Art.
Asked whether she used her staff to chauffeur her around Washington on personal business, McCarthy said, “I will not talk about past staffers. I will honor their privacy. This is a personnel matter.”
Characterizing the Grammy trip as official business, Stanley Brand, McCarthy's Washington lawyer, said it was an allowable expense under campaign-finance law.
That stand appeared to contradict rules promulgated by the House ethics committee in a booklet issued to lawmakers.
Those rules state lawmakers “may not use campaign funds or resources for official House purposes.”
“The music and recording industry has a host of issues that come before Congress,” Brand said. “It doesn't matter what she did. The use of campaign money for going up there is a legitimate, bona-fide campaign expense.”
McCarthy said that as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, she deals with file-sharing issues and copyright laws important to the music industry.
She said she charged the trip to her campaign account because “recording artists also have been very helpful to me in my election efforts, supporting me locally and nationally.”
She also cited the 18th and Vine district as one reason for her concern with music.
Brand said lawmakers routinely use campaign funds to pay for country club memberships, Super Bowl tickets and “things members believe are in their campaign interests to do.”
Brand, known as one of Washington's best lawyers for officials in trouble, had earlier counseled McCarthy she could use campaign money to pay for a management consultant for her congressional office.
The House ethics committee had advised McCarthy she could not.
Cindy VanSickle, McCarthy's former scheduler, who has accused her former boss of misusing her campaign account, said Friday that McCarthy took at least two other campaign-financed trips to the Grammys when the ceremony was in Los Angeles. McCarthy acknowledged she has attended previous Grammys.
“I know she never paid personally,” said VanSickle, who was fired by McCarthy on Oct. 1. “It wasn't official, either.”
A campaign credit-card statement showed a $2,917 bill from the Waldorf Astoria hotel during her Grammy trip to New York, a four-day stay.
That charge was not itemized on campaign-expense reports, as federal rules dictate.
On Friday, Karen Holland, McCarthy's campaign treasurer, said she had called the Federal Election Commission and was working to provide “greater detail” for reports she already filed with the agency.
“I'm working on it as diligently and quickly as I can,” Holland said.
As of Sept. 30, McCarthy's campaign reports showed $418,112 in the bank, a total accumulated over several years. In the last quarter she raised only $6,600.
Besides questions about McCarthy's use of campaign funds, the congresswoman has been dogged by unusually high staff turnover, including the departure of three top aides in three months. After McCarthy returned from an alcohol rehabilitation stay in Arizona this spring, she acknowledged problems in running her office but blamed top aides.
Brand said House ethics rules allow token, incidental overlap of official resources, such as staff time, for personal use.
Asked about staff allegations that they took McCarthy to massage appointments, meals with friends, and the grocery store, he said, “That's not an accurate characterization. They weren't ferrying her around.”
Several former staff members, however, have said that office workers were used exactly that way. Driving McCarthy to work each morning, for example, is an almost daily occurrence when McCarthy is in Washington, they said.
Celia Wexler, research director for Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said if McCarthy uses campaign funds for personal use and has official staff drive her on personal errands, “it certainly raises questions and concerns.”
“We elect people to Congress to represent us, to be fully engaged in that,” Wexler said. “We send them campaign contributions to foster their election. If there are staffs, we assume they're doing work related to the larger goal of representing us.”
McCarthy also did not pay for two Chiefs tickets provided by Sprint Corp. until after questions by The Kansas City Star a month later. The value of the tickets was over the $100 House gift limit.
Kansas City Democratic activists said Friday that McCarthy was growing more politically vulnerable. She already has drawn two opponents in the Democratic primary. One Republican candidate also is campaigning.
Longtime Democratic consultant Jim Bergfalk suggested that McCarthy's political vulnerability “is starting to show.
“It's the old Chinese water torture,” he said. “It's not the one thing that gets people's attention. It's the constant dribble. It's the pattern here.”
Former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver said friends have gone to McCarthy asking that she consider resigning for the sake of her health.
He advised McCarthy to get out in public more often and be upfront about her health problem.
“She's not been as visible as some of us would like her to be,” he said. “She's got to be able to go out and say publicly, ‘I have a problem, and I intend to take complete control of it.' ”
He said he and most Democrats continue to stand by her.
Mark Bryant, a lawyer and president of Freedom Inc., a political club that has long supported McCarthy, said the drumbeat of newspaper stories was taking a toll.
“As of today, she continues to enjoy our support,” he said. “But she needs to consider other options rather than to continue to be pummeled with bad press.”
Bergfalk spoke of concern that the traditionally Democratic 5th District could be growing ripe for a Republican upset next year. “It's a very real fear,” he said.
McCarthy, he said, needs to take responsibility for her actions and stop blaming others.
“It's getting old,” he said.
To reach Steve Kraske, political correspondent, call (816) 234-4312 or send e-mail to
