About 250 congressional staffers earned a total of $13 million in outside income in 2009, according to a Wall Street Journal article published Wednesday.
The Journal used LegiStorm's database of personal financial disclosures to look at about 3,000 forms filed in 2010, which included details on income earned in 2009.
Most of the largest earners identified by the Journal cashed in on deferred compensation that was owed them before they took jobs on Capitol Hill. Although there is a cap on outside income earned by senior staff, such deferred payments do not count against the cap.
For example, Katheryn Rosen, who worked for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on the House Financial Services Committee, earned more than $500,000 in deferred compensation from J.P. Morgan Chase not long after joining the committee staff in July 2009. Later that year she cashed out about $300,000 of J.P. Morgan Chase stock that had vested.
The largest earner was David Krone, an aide to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who received a $1.2 million payment from Comcast as reimbursement for a condo, part of Krone's severance package when he left the telecommunications company for Reid's office. LegiStorm has detailed Krone's large compensation before, including more than $5 million he earned in 2008 before joining Reid's staff. The Journal found no evidence Reid has taken action to benefit Comcast since Krone has worked in his office.
Senior staff and all members of Congress are required to file the disclosures, although staffers' forms are only made available in person through the House and Senate public record rooms. LegiStorm is the only online source for these disclosures, which requires us to print out tens of thousands of pages of paper forms, then scan them and add them to our database. We are currently in the process of adding staff disclosures filed in 2011.
