Some legislators send millions to groups connected to their relatives

The Washington Post reports on why Sheila Jackson Lee likes the federal government spending money on higher education:

The Post found a pattern of members of Congress who earmarked funds for colleges where their relatives were employed or on boards.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) has championed millions in earmarks to the University of Houston while her husband, Elwyn C. Lee, has helped to run the school as a senior administrator.

The congresswoman or her staff have met with other top university officials to discuss funding for school programs.

“We greatly appreciate the Congresswoman’s support over the years and hope that she can help us again this year with these requests,” a school official wrote to a staff assistant for the lawmaker in May 2011, according to internal e-mails obtained through a public records request.

Elwyn Lee has worked at the university since 1978. Twenty years later, he had risen to dual executive roles: vice president of student affairs for the university and vice chancellor of student affairs for the university system. Last March, he was named the university’s vice president for community relations and institutional access.

Since 1994, his salary has almost doubled, to $210,491 a year.

Jackson Lee, who took office in 1995, discloses her husband’s job on her financial disclosure form. She has helped obtain four congressional earmarks for the school totaling about $5.3 million since 2009, according to the university.

In 2009, she co-sponsored two earmarks to the university: $2.4 million for a “National Wind Energy Center,” and $476,000 for a “Center for Clean Fuels and Power Generation.” In 2010, she sponsored a $400,000 earmark to the university for teacher training and professional development and co-sponsored an additional $2 million for the wind center.

Better than the best bank heist.