Campaign-funding probes popping up in election aftermath
BY
South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long
Phill Kline
PIERRE -- Six weeks after last November's election, campaign-finance legal actions aimed at or by state attorneys general are popping up all over.
The latest is a civil complaint filed today by South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long (D) against state Rep. Roger Hunt (R) alleging that a Hunt corporation, Promising Futures, Inc., functioned as a "corporate shell" for making anonymous political contributions leading up to last November's mid-term ballot.
Long has asked a judge to decide whether Promising Futures must reveal the name of an anonymous donor of $750,000 to Hunt's anti-abortion campaign of 2006. Hunt says the dispute is over South Dakota's campaign finance law and is not a criminal matter.
Recently in Kansas, outgoing Attorney General Phill Kline (R) also found himself in campaign-finance hot water over his run for a second term last November. The state's Governmental Ethics Commission recently announced that it was investigating whether Kline's office improperly used its taxpayer-funded computers to produce material for his recent re-election campaign. Kline faces fines of up to $5,000 if convicted.
On the other hand, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers (D) is being sued, along with Secretary of State Bill Bradley, for refusing to enforce a campaign-finance ballot measure approved by voters in November. Advocates of Measure 47 filed the suit last week after the state elections director ruled that voters' rejection of an earlier measure meant that Measure 47 couldn't be enacted because voters rejected its companion Measure 46.
According to an Associated Press report, the decision was based on previous Oregon Supreme Court decisions thst have "equated campaign donations with constitutionally protected free speech."
And yesterday in Missouri, a failed legislative candidate filed suit challenging a law that bars state candidates from taking campaign contributions during legislative sessions but imposes no limits at other times.
A similar Missouri law was struck down on free-speech grounds in federal court 10 years ago.
BATON ROUGE, La. (Legal Newsline) - A video has recently surfaced that shows a consultant advising a group of trial lawyers to find the defendants with deep pockets when pursuing a "legacy lawsuit."
