So this raises some eyebrows:
U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., paid his son’s company at least $52,500 in campaign funds over the past two years, according to a Reno Gazette Journal review of election filings.
Reports filed by Nevada’s senior senator show Heller Enterprises LLC — a little-known music production company started by Harrison Heller in 2013 — was the Heller campaign’s second-highest-paid social and digital media consultant since July 2016.
The Utah-based business has no other employees. It is not listed as a paid vendor for any other federal election campaign.
Yet an RGJ analysis of thousands of campaign finance disclosures reveals the company was among the 20 best-paid social media consultants hired by a federal campaign committee over the past decade. It was the fourth-highest-paid such vendor across 11 Western states over the same time period.
Those payments raised eyebrows among good-government watchdogs, who pointed out that federal law bars candidates from overpaying family members for campaign services.
Candidates' habit of hiring family members, while fairly common, has long been criticized by reformers who say it smacks of nepotism and self-dealing.
“Unfortunately, as a matter of policy, it doesn’t look unusual,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director at Issue One, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for stronger ethics and campaign finance rules. “I say unfortunately because it lends itself, certainly, to the appearance that there is self-enrichment going on.
Here’s some more context:
Paying family members with campaign funds is legal, as long as they aren’t paid more than market rate for the work and the work is for bona fide campaign services. But ethics experts have flagged the practice as problematic. It’s ensnared members of Congress from both parties, including GOP Reps. Kevin Cramer (N.D.) and Stephen King (Iowa) and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush (Ill.).
“A candidate or office-holder contracting with a family member raises questions about personal use of campaign money,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal and FEC reform at the Campaign Legal Center. “If a candidate can use donor money to fund the lifestyle of themselves or their family members, the risk of corruption goes up.”
Harris Heller isn’t a social media neophyte. He describes himself as “Musician/social media influencer” on his LinkedIn page, declaring: “If I’m not playing guitar, snapchatting or streaming on Twitch you should probably call the police.” He and his wife, the singer Kenzie Nimmo, have hundreds of thousands of followers on their YouTube accounts and were popular on Vine before Twitter shut down the latter service. They’ve appeared on The View and in ads for Gap, Coca-Cola and HP.
The Heller campaign defended the hire, saying the younger Heller produced most of the video content for the campaign’s social media accounts, shooting hundreds of hours of video. He has also started the campaign’s Instagram account and provides story-telling expertise that traditional campaign digital consultants lack.
While on the surface, there isn’t any illegal about this but it is weird that Heller’s using his campaign funds to basically help his son out with his social influencer career. By the way, here’s a taste of what you can find on Harris Heller’s YouTube page:
As someone who works with YouTube channels and social influencers, I can tell you be reviewing his channel, he’s not a social influencer wiz, that’s for sure. I feel like he’s someone just trying anything to get quick and fast views on his channel. But that’s a whole different discussion.
Look, it’s nice that Heller wants to help out his son but if you’re in a tight re-election bid with Rep. Jacky Rosen (D. NV), you can’t waste any campaign money. Then again, maybe Heller knows this is the end of his career and wants to help his son’s career. But if he wants to help out his son, let’s send him home next year so he can focus on that and less on taking away people’s health care. Click here to donate and get involved with Rosen’s campaign.