CAMPAIGN ’88 : FEC Rejects GOP, Votes Bentsen, Dukakis Funds

The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to provide Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen with their full $46.1-million allotment of federal campaign funding despite Republican assertions that Bentsen’s dual races for the vice presidency and the Senate violate campaign finance statutes.

The 6-0 decision, taken in an emergency meeting in Washington, rejected a complaint by the Republican Senatorial Committee and Bentsen’s Senate opponent, Rep. Beau Boulter (D-Tex.), who had sought to hold up the Democratic funding on grounds that Bentsen’s double candidacy would provide the Democrats with an unfair advantage.

The Republican officials had contended that the $4 million in private funds Bentsen was expected to spend on his Senate campaign would also benefit his vice presidential bid and should therefore be counted as part of the Democrats’ overall campaign spending, which is to be publicly funded.

In turning down the Republican complaint, the FEC ruled that “nothing in the campaign finance statutes or regulations requires Sen. Bentsen to withdraw from the Senate race or prohibits him from using private contributions to further his Senate race.”

But commissioners made clear that Bentsen’s dual candidacy--made possible by an unusual Texas law--raised “sensitive” questions in election law, fueling what commissioner Scott E. Thomas predicted would be “a fair amount of dispute in the weeks and months ahead.”