[StBernard] Sen. Mary Landrieu's response to improper campaign donations draws complaint

[Westley Annis]

Sen. Mary Landrieu's response to improper campaign donations draws complaint
By Bruce Alpert, Times-Picayune 
November 20, 2009, 5:37PM

Sen. Mary Landrieu's old nemesis, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, Friday filed a new complaint against the Louisiana Democrat --
this time with the Federal Election Commission.

At issue is a $25,300 donation from the re-election campaign of Sen. Mary
Landrieu to the U.S. Treasury in August 2008.The private watchdog group
wants the FEC to investigate a $25,300 donation the Landrieu re-election
campaign made to the U.S. Treasury in August 2008.

Mark Elias, a lawyer for her campaign committee, said that the payment was
related to donations that ran afoul of campaign finance regulations -- such
as exceeding contribution limits or coming from a corporate source. He said
the committee decided that sending a check to the treasury to cover the
amount of the donations was the best way to handle the matter and described
the action as routine.

But Elias has declined to comment on the source of the problem donations,
which prompted Friday's complaint to the Federal Election Commission.

"Our campaign finance laws were designed to ensure transparency," said
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "Sen. Landrieu cannot ignore a law
she finds inconvenient simply to save herself the embarrassment of
acknowledging she received illegal campaign contributions. If Sen. Landrieu
did nothing wrong, she has no reason not to come clean with the American
people and explain why she turned over $25,000 in contributions to the
Treasury."

Elias, who has said the Landrieu campaign didn't want to embarrass donors
who inadvertently ran afoul of campaign regulations, dismissed the CREW
complaint to the FEC as baseless.

"This is a silly complaint," Elias said. "Unfortunately FEC rules don't
prevent frivolous complaints; nonetheless, it will ultimately be dismissed."

Two weeks ago, the Senate Ethics Committee dismissed a 2008 CREW complaint
against Landrieu that questioned a link between a $2 million appropriation
the senator helped secure for a Texas company whose employees contributed to
the senator's campaign fund. Landrieu's office maintained the donations had
nothing to do with the appropriation, and apparently the Ethics Committee
found nothing to dispute that explanation.

The appropriation was intended, her office said, to bring a successful
reading program by Voyager Expanded Learning into Washington, D.C., to
address protracted problems with student reading scores and had the support
of Washington officials and other members of Congress.