D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown’s campaigns have a history of hiring companies owned by close friends that then paid his family members. An audit of Brown’s 2008 re-election campaign for an at-large council seat revealed this week that Brown paid nearly $400,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts to Banner Consulting, which was owned by the treasurer of his 2004 campaign. Banner then in turn hired Partners in Learning, owned by Brown’s brother Che Brown, and paid it $240,000 to provide the same services, the audit by the office of campaign finance said.