Freshman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is facing new and uncomfortable questions about the deferred compensation package he received from the plastics company he ran before entering the Senate.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes that Johnson received $10 million from the company, Pacur, weeks after his $9 million self-financed campaign came to an end.
From the Journal-Sentinel:
The first-term Republican declined to say how his Oshkosh firm, Pacur, came up with a figure that so closely mirrored the amount he personally put into his campaign fund.
“You take a look in terms of what would be a reasonable compensation package, OK?” Johnson said this week. “It’s a private business. I’ve complied with all the disclosure laws, and I don’t have to explain it any further to someone like you.”
The similar figures raise a key question whether he and his company designed the packaged to elude laws limiting corporate donations to political candidates. Johnson says this is a coincidence. But while most deferred compensation are designed in advance, and vary in size based on the length of service, Johsnon says the $10 million figure was “an agreed-upon amount.”
“Agreed upon by whom?” the Journal-Sentinel asked.
“That would be me,” Johnson said.
Johnson made well over $1 million annually before running for Senate from a mix of capital gains, corporate earnings, and real estate.
