State Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, signs the formal complaint to the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications, regarding an alleged ethics infraction by Sedgwick County District Court Judge Paul W. Clark. Abortion opponents filed the ethics complaint Thursday against Clark, who dismissed 30 misdemeanor criminal charges against Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

Topeka ? Abortion opponents filed an ethics complaint Thursday against the Sedgwick County judge who dismissed 30 misdemeanor criminal charges against the state’s best-known abortion provider.

The complaint alleges District Judge Paul W. Clark violated rules of judicial conduct by not disclosing he had received campaign contributions in 2004 from a law firm representing Dr. George Tiller and from Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston.

The rules, imposed by the Kansas Supreme Court, require a judge to remove himself from a case “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

State Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, who strongly opposes abortion, filed the complaint with the Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which reviews allegations of misconduct by judges. Officials with national anti-abortion groups, including Operation Rescue, also were listed as complaining parties.

“When you have an overt appearance of impropriety, it diminishes the public trust in the judicial system,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said during a Statehouse news conference where Huelskamp signed his complaint.

Dan Monnat, an attorney in the firm representing Tiller, said Clark had developed a strong reputation for fairness in more than two decades on the bench. He said the ethics complaint was part of “last-gasp maneuvers” by abortion opponents against Tiller.

“I think it’s preposterous in Kansas that a judge should need to disqualify himself because lawyers have contributed to his campaign,” Monnat said. “It happens every day.”

Charges dismissed

In December, then-Attorney General Phill Kline filed the criminal case against Tiller, accusing the doctor of performing illegal late-term abortions and failing to properly report the details to state health officials. Clark dismissed the charges the next day.

Tiller’s Wichita clinic is the site of regular protests because he is among a few doctors in the nation performing late-term abortions, which are legal in Kansas only in certain circumstances. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and eight years later, a woman who waited for hours outside the clinic shot him in both arms.

Tiller also helped finance hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising aimed at defeating Kline, an anti-abortion Republican, in 2002 and 2006. Before filing the charges against Tiller, Kline had waged a two-year legal battle to get patient records from the clinic.

Clark dismissed the charges on jurisdictional grounds at Foulston’s urging. The judge agreed with the district attorney that Kline didn’t have the legal authority to file a criminal case against Tiller in Sedgwick County because Foulston hadn’t consented to it. Kline argued that the attorney general can file such a case anywhere in the state.

Kline left the attorney general’s office Jan. 8. He lost the November general election to Paul Morrison, an abortion rights Democrat, who has been reviewing the evidence against Tiller for weeks but hasn’t filed a new case.

Campaign donations

Campaign finance records show Clark received the maximum $500 dollar contribution from the law firm of Monnat and Spurrier on July 1, 2004. He also received a $500 contribution from Foulston and her husband on Sept. 28.

A Democrat, Clark raised nearly $28,000 for his re-election campaign in 2004 and won the general election with 59 percent of the vote. Judges in Sedgwick County are chosen in partisan elections.

Clark was not immediately available for comment and did not return a telephone message left at his office. A spokeswoman for Foulston also did not return a call seeking comment.

The Commission on Judicial Qualifications can admonish judges over their behavior or recommend disciplinary action to the Supreme Court, which would then have the final say. The Supreme Court has the authority to suspend or remove a judge from the bench.

Huelskamp said the speed at which Clark ruled to dismiss the charges against Tiller gave an appearance that the campaign contributions influenced his decision.

“We think this is a very serious charge,” Huelskamp said.

He said it wasn’t enough that Clark had disclosed the contributions in campaign documents filed with the secretary of state’s office. He should have made them clear to all attorneys in open court, Huelskamp said.

The senator said he wants the commission to determine whether Clark improperly hid his financial ties to attorneys appearing before him, and whether he had private conversations with parties in the Tiller case, without other parties present. Huelskamp said Kline was not notified by Clark that he was holding a hearing about the charges or given the opportunity to defend them, when Monnat and Foulston were notified.

Tiller’s attorneys repeatedly described the charges as being without merit. Morrison has said he will prosecute Tiller if he finds evidence of wrongdoing, but abortion opponents don’t trust him.

Earlier this month, Operation Rescue launched a campaign to get Kline’s charges against Tiller reinstated. Operation Rescue plans to have a Statehouse rally Tuesday, followed by a news conference.

Newman said Operation Rescue and other organizations were continuing their investigations, but declined to elaborate.

“This is the first red flag,” he said. “And it’s a huge one.”