Udall takes aim at potential Senate rival

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 1, 2007 at midnight

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WASHINGTON — Rep. Mark Udall fired a warning shot in the 2008 U.S. Senate race on Thursday by co-sponsoring "anti-corruption" legislation that reminds people of a past controversy surrounding one of his potential Republican rivals, former congressman Scott McInnis.

Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, agreed to co-sponsor a bill by Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., to prohibit candidates or their immediate family members from drawing salaries from campaign committees for campaign-related work.

McInnis drew media scrutiny and complaints from Democrats in 2004 and 2005 over the tens of thousands of dollars his campaign has paid his wife, Lori, to work as campaign manager — including after he announced he would leave Congress to become a lobbyist.

Paying family members from campaign accounts is legal as long as the spending is for legitimate campaign work or expenses and it's at market rates. The practice is relatively common in Congress, and several current or past Colorado lawmakers are among those who have paid family members from campaign accounts.

Still, none of the other Colorado cases comes close to the more than $145,000 that Lori McInnis was paid from 2001 to 2005.

Democrats filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The panel took no action after the FEC's general counsel called it a low-priority complaint compared to "higher rated matters" and recommended dismissal.

"That claim was filed simply for harassment," McInnis told the Rocky Mountain News at the time. "It was a frivolous claim."

Udall, a Democrat, and McInnis, a Republican, are considered among the leading contenders in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Wayne Allard.

Udall did not mention McInnis by name in a press release touting the "anti-corruption act" on Thursday, but by highlighting the family-payments practice he signaled an issue that's sure to resurface if there's a Udall-McInnis matchup.

"In effect, the 2002 FEC ruling allowing candidates to use campaign funds to pay salaries to themselves or their family members enables them to evade the federal law that prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal expenses," Udall said in a release. "This is a loophole big enough to drive a truckload of money through."

McInnis could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

In 2005, when McInnis was considering a run for governor, he was asked if he worried about the payments to his wife being used as a campaign issue.

"Sure, they're going to throw anything they can at us," McInnis said at the time. "I'm sure they're going to see if I have an overdue parking ticket in Denver. They'll do whatever they can."

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