ISSUE: Campaign Finance
- Laurin Manning
- Mar 22, 2012 at 7:45 am
POLITICO: Lugar To Repay Home State Hotel Expenses
This morning Politico posted a story on Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar’s residency woes, which have been catalogued in detail over at American Bridge’s VirginiaIsForLugars.com. In this latest development, Lugar is being forced to repay the United States Treasury $4,500 after it was brought to light that Lugar had improperly charged taxpayers for hotel bills in Indianapolis, his so-called “duty station” under Senate ethics rules. Using official funds to cover hotel costs within 35 miles of one’s duty station is in violation of Senate ethics rules.
For further details, check out Manu Raju’s story in Politico here. Excerpts are below:
- Laurin Manning
- Mar 6, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Tracking Footage: Senator Lugar Attends High-Dollar Fundraiser In Washington, DC
As Hoosiers are just beginning to recover from the devastating tornadoes, Senator Dick Lugar was in Washington, DC this morning to attend a high-dollar fundraiser. Our trackers caught him heading into Charlie Palmer’s Steakhouse on Capitol Hill. We asked him if it’s appropriate to be attending a high-dollar fundraiser when so many Hoosiers have lost their homes. Watch the video to hear his answer.
- Derek Pearce
- Mar 2, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Romney’s Ties To Lobbyists Highlight His Record of Hypocrisy
Despite his desperate attempts to paint Sen. Rick Santorum as a creature of Washington and a professional influence peddler, Gov. Mitt Romney has bragged about his ability to milk funds out of the federal government, and boasts his own close ties to Washington’s most powerful lobbyists.
“Mitt Romney has a bad habit of hypocritically attacking his opponents over issues that boomerang straight back at his campaign,” said American Bridge senior adviser Ty Matsdorf. “If he believes lobbyists are what’s wrong with Washington, why does he court them? If he thinks Fannie and Freddie are evil, why did he invest in them?”
“This is further proof that Mitt Romney will say and do anything to get elected — and then say something else an hour later,” Matsdorf added.
See the research below.
- Derek Pearce
- Feb 16, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Columbus Dispatch: Dems Say Mandel’s Campaign Trips Illegally Funded
On February 15, the Columbus Dispatch reported:
The Ohio Democratic Party today filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that state Treasurer Josh Mandel illegally used money from his state candidate fund to pay for activities related to his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Mandel, the Ohio GOP-endorsed candidate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, “appears to have paid for a least 10 trips” from his state fund — Citizens for Josh Mandel — for the purpose of gathering support for his Senate, the Democrats allege.
- Derek Pearce
- Feb 13, 2012 at 2:26 pm
NY Times: Romney Runs As An Outsider But Makes Room For Lobbyists
On February 12, 2012, the New York Times reported:
They have hosted fund-raisers and raised millions of dollars for his campaign. They employed some of his top operatives after his first White House run, helped create the platform for his second bid and have deployed regularly to attack his Republican rivals on the campaign trail.
For a candidate running against the entrenched interests of Washington, Mitt Romney keeps an awful lot of lobbyists around.
ISSUES
Afghanistan Budget Campaign Finance China Civil Rights Climate Change Defense Disclosure Economy Education Energy Environment Ethics Extreme Rhetoric Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Housing Immigration Iran Iraq Israel Jobs Labor LGBT Libya Lies Medicaid Medicare Mine Safety Mitt's Flips Mortgage Reform Out of Touch Pay-to-Play Plagiarism Poverty Social Security Taxes Trade Transparency Unions Veterans Voting Rights Wall Street Reform Women's Issues
Latest Tweets
Connect
Featured research
-
MEMO: 12 Things We Could Learn From Previous Romney Tax Returns

ICYMI: With Mitt Romney still refusing to release his pre-2010 returns, we wanted to be sure that you saw our previous memo explaining why it is so important that Mitt Romney release them.
Click through for the 12 questions that Mitt Romney needs to answer by releasing his previous years’ tax returns.
-
ICYMI: Romney Profited From Government Handouts
This morning, the Los Angeles Times reported on Mitt Romney’s reliance on tax breaks and government subsidies while working in private equity. The article focuses on Steel Dynamics, the same steel company featured in Romney’s positive ad released just this morning, and all of the government help they received. In fact, Dekalb County was forced to institute a new tax to pay for all of the handouts.
Despite his constant opposition to government interference in the free market, Mitt Romney has a long history of profiting from government handouts. Research after the jump.
-
Scott Brown’s Website Steals Childhood Anecdote From… Elizabeth Dole

Sen. Scott Brown may have some explaining to do. It seems a passage from his website detailing the values instilled in him as a young child was stolen essentially word-for-word from former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
Original research & screenshots after the jump.



