EXCLUSIVE: RNC's Steele associates' pay spurs questions

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By Ralph Z. Hallow

EXCLUSIVE:

When Michael S. Steele took over as chairman of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, he brought along longtime personal assistant Belinda Cook and gave her a salary nearly three times what her predecessor made.

Mrs. Cook's son, Lee, also landed an RNC job.

Mr. Steele hired another family friend, Angela Sailor, to be the party's outreach director at a salary of $180,000, more than double her predecessor's compensation, though new responsibilities have been added to the job, according to a high-ranking RNC official and Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.

Mr. Steele's early record and personnel decisions figure to be hot topics at a special meeting of Republican state party chairmen Tuesday and Wednesday at National Harbor in Washington's Maryland suburbs. His hiring of friends and the salaries he is paying them already helped to instigate a struggle over who controls the party's purse strings, one that forced the new party chairman to relinquish some control to elected RNC members.

"These salaries we hear about are way out of line for what staff should be paid for working for a political party, which most of us think of as a cause," said Hawaii Republican Party Chairman Willis Lee. "And if certain staff at the national committee are making that much, then the public understandably might think they are examples of cronyism."

RNC Communications Director Trevor Francis declined to address specifically questions about the salaries of Mrs. Cook and Ms. Sailor and the reasons for the increases.

"Salaries aren't secret, just something that we're not going to talk about outside of our [Federal Election Commission] filings," Mr. Francis said.

Mr. Steele could face other headaches at the special meeting as well, including a vote on a resolution he has publicly opposed: to ask the Democratic Party to rename itself "the Democrat Socialist Party." Two other less contentious resolutions - praising Republican lawmakers for opposing pet federal projects, government bailouts and heavy federal spending - also will be voted on.

But many complaints will focus on staff compensation. Some party officials have said that the salaries appear generous compared with those paid for similar positions under previous RNC head Robert M. "Mike" Duncan.