Washington — The Federal Election Commission opened a review Thursday into allegations that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's failed Senate re-election campaign broke campaign finance laws last year by improperly acquiring and renting out a massive donor list.
The review comes in response to a complaint filed by Common Cause and other campaign finance reform groups. They asserted that Ashcroft's campaign reaped substantial benefits from the valuable donor list without reporting it as a gift, as required by federal law.
But officials with Ashcroft's former campaign denied any wrongdoing.
At issue is a fund-raising list of about 100,000 previous donors to GOP causes and candidates that Ashcroft used in his bid for re-election to the Senate from Missouri.
Common Cause, joined by the National Voting Rights Institute and other groups in an FEC complaint filed Thursday, alleged that the Spirit of America a conservative political action committee founded by Ashcroft in 1996 spent an estimated $2 million to develop the voter list and then gave it to the Ashcroft 2000 senatorial campaign.
Common Cause alleged that Ashcroft's campaign used the list for fund raising and earned $116,000 by renting it to other political groups, such as defense funds for Linda Tripp and Paula Corbin Jones.
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