Specter rips Sestak over pay given to election staff
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WASHINGTON -- The latest attack ad from Sen. Arlen Specter in his increasingly heated Democratic primary fight with Rep. Joe Sestak targets the Delaware County congressman on how much he pays his employees.
The pay is indisputably low, but whether it's criminal, as the Specter campaign claims, is questionable.
The Sestak campaign insists it is following the law -- while charging that Mr. Specter's allegations are distracting from meaningful policy debate -- noting that campaign workers often are provided with free housing and work for a stipend, not a salary or hourly wage.
But not factoring in additional benefits, based on a Post-Gazette review of the Sestak campaign's first quarter filing with the Federal Elections Commission, 12 employees -- if they worked 40 hours a week -- did not make minimum wage in February. Several others aren't paid much more.
The campaign paid employees as little as $1.57 per hour before taxes, assuming a full-time workload. The Sestak campaign would not confirm whether any of the employees in question were part time or split between the campaign and congressional staff of the second-term representative from Delaware County.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and the Department of Labor provided the Post-Gazette a legal document this week that states campaign workers fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act if they perform acts such as making phone calls out of state, cashing out-of-state checks, or drafting reports or statements that are disseminated outside the state -- all common activities of a political campaign. Though the legal document was first drafted in 1977, a Department of Labor spokesman said the department stands by the findings.
The Department of Labor would not comment on the specific case of the Sestak campaign, nor would the department say if anyone has raised a federal wage complaint -- which typically is lodged by a current or former employee.
First Published April 30, 2010 12:00 am
