Matt Lewis (provided photo)
Matt Lewis (provided photo)
CHARLESTON – West Virginia is no stranger to wealthy politicians running for office or lawmakers getting rich while in office.
But a new book by Jefferson County-based political writer Matt Lewis points to the most egregious examples across the country and how to make reforms.
Lewis, senior columnist for The Daily Beast, MSNBC contributor and podcast host “Matt Lewis and the News”, is the author of “Dirty Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling Class Elites Taking Advantage of America.” The book is available for pre-order and will be released on July 18.
“Dirty Rich Politicians” takes a look at the national phenomena of millionaires, and in some cases billionaires, who are recruited to run for office, as well as career politicians who use their perch to enrich themselves.
“It’s about how the rich get elected and the elected get richer,” Lewis said in a telephone interview from his home in Charles Town. “While I think both sides of the story are interesting and important, obviously I think the more important and probably the most concerning is the fact that the people who get elected tend to get rich.”
According to a 2018 review of the income and assets of members of Congress by Quartz, the average lawmaker in Congress was worth about $1.1 million, or more than 12 times that of the typical median household in the States united According to OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations and congressional financial reporting, the richest 10 percent of members of Congress in 2020 have three times the wealth of 90 percent of the remaining members of Congress.
“For many, many years, politicians have been richer than the rest of us … and that gap has been widening over the past four decades.” Lewis said. “I think the trend is really for members of Congress: the house of the people, the lower house. And this is where we have seen in the last few decades that gap. It is now the case that the average member of Congress is a millionaire, while the average American salary is roughly $56,000 a year. I’m sure it’s lower in West Virginia.”
In “filthy rich politicians”, Lewis argues that the growing wealth of members of Congress is adding to the perception among a restless electorate that the system is rigged, giving rise to more extreme politicians, including former President Donald Trump and others.
“He talks about why Donald Trump’s message has really resonated.” Lewis said. “It talks about the game being rigged and draining the swamp. Part of the reason it resonates is that I think there’s really a sense that the game is rigged and that people who are in positions of power are able to take advantage of those positions to enrich themselves- se, to get rich. I think that’s really the part of the story that’s toxic and feeds the perception that the game is rigged.”
One of the ways Lewis says “Dirty Rich Politicians” that members of Congress get rich is by playing the stock market, sometimes using the information they learn in the course of their work in committees and other meetings to make perfectly timed trades to make them money.
According to a 2022 New York Times article, 97 lawmakers in Congress reported doing business with companies they interact with on committees or other work on Capitol Hill.
No law prevents members of Congress from insider trading, although there have been efforts, including the ETHICS (Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks) Act led by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. , and US Senator Sherrod Brown, D. -Ohio.
“The insider trading stuff is the most egregious and the most troubling,” Lewis said. “Obviously, the first is to ban stock trading for members of Congress and their families.”
Another way to make money includes book deals. Lawmakers in Congress have been prohibited by law since 1991 from giving paid speeches. But there are no rules for accepting book advances, which can sometimes be in the tens of thousands of dollars, or royalties from book sales. According to Insider, in 2020 there were 26 members of Congress who took advantage of lucrative book deals.
“Now there are many politicians who have become very rich by writing books.” Lewis said. “In some cases, these books are subsidized by their campaign or by a political action committee or supporters who buy in bulk. They buy a lot of copies, basically putting money in politicians’ pockets.”
“Someone asked (U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.) how he became a millionaire and he said, ‘I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you might as well be a millionaire.” Lewis said. “So there are only so many ways politicians can use their perch to their advantage.”
Lewis said politicians aren’t the only ones coming in. Sometimes they help their friends, family and campaign staff get campaign jobs and collect big paychecks. And even when a member of Congress retires or loses an election, he can still get rich by becoming a lobbyist and influencing his fellow lawmakers in Congress.
Lewis includes a number of solutions to curb the ability of members of Congress to enrich themselves while in office. These include a ban on insider trading, a ban on making a fortune selling books while in office, congressional term limits, a 10-year ban on lobbying after leaving Congress; and increase the annual salary of members of Congress.
“Even though your average member of Congress makes $174,000 a year, I realize that’s a lot more than the average American or certainly more than the average West Virginian, it would actually give them a raise of you are.” Lewis said. “We want to attract the best and the brightest, and we want to pay them some money. Instead of having to cut off their ability to bet on the stock market and write these best-selling books, we could pay them a little more and make them focus on taking care of us people instead of feathering their own nests.”
Lewis grew up in Western Maryland and graduated from Shepherd University. He spent his young adult years working for Republican political campaigns, including that of a Maryland state legislator named Alex Mooney. He is married to political fundraising consultant Erin Delullo, a Jefferson County native, and they moved to Charles Town just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with their two children.
“I have to say it’s been a total blessing for us to be out here” Lewis said. “My first summer here when people in Washington, DC were having COVID lockdowns and they were stuck inside, I was coaching Little League baseball here at Jefferson County Little League, for one of the teams in the my son It’s just this incredibly beautiful place to be.
“Also, my wife’s grandfather lives near us and he just turned 101 in May.” Lewis said. “Besides the beauty of the state, being able to be with family is special since I have two young children. It’s been amazing for us, so we’re very happy to be here.”
After leaving the campaign trail, Lewis wrote for AOL’s “Political Journal” i “The Daily Caller” before becoming a senior columnist at “The Daily Beast” where he writes about national politics and the conservative movement.
“Dirty Rich Politicians” is Lewis’s third book. He wrote “The Quotable Rogue: Sarah Palin’s Ideals in Her Own Words” in 2011 and “Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump” in 2016.
While not an expert on the intricacies of West Virginia politics, Lewis has written about U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., and how West Virginia’s influence in Congress has grown in recent years. Working from home, Lewis said it helps inform his writing about politics by staying outside the D.C. bubble.
“West Virginia is obviously a very important political state. We’re in the middle of it, it’s a great place to be.” Lewis said. “As a political columnist who covers conservatism and the Republican Party in America and who writes about politics and culture, it’s very helpful to live in a place like West Virginia. It’s very helpful for my job to be in a place where people go to the range and go fishing, and that wasn’t always the case when I lived in the DC area.”
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.
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