4 Democratic State Chairmen Seek Probe of Bush’s Spending

Four Democratic Party state chairmen asked the Federal Election Commission on Monday to investigate whether Vice President George Bush’s presidential campaign had violated election laws by exceeding spending limits.

Filing a complaint with the FEC were Richard Wiener of Michigan, James Ruvolo of Ohio, Frank Holleman of South Carolina and Richard Lodge of Tennessee.

“We file this complaint today to formally raise the issues of whether or not George Bush has mismanaged his campaign funds and overspent the legal limit,” said Wiener, president of the Assn. of State Democratic Chairs.

Seen as ‘Partisan Challenge’

Mark Goodin, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, called it a “partisan challenge” and said the campaign would welcome any inquiry by the FEC.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Goodin said. “This campaign has bent over backwards to comply with the letter and the spirit of the law.”

Wiener said that, as of June 30, Bush had spent $22.1 million of the $23.1 million he is allowed to spend for all preconvention activities. That, Wiener said, left Bush with only $943,000 to spend from July 1 through next week, when he is expected to receive the GOP nomination.

Wiener said Bush had spent an average of about $1 million a month since March and traveled extensively in July, going to 15 cities in 14 states.

“Frankly, we as state chairs wonder just how he is able to do all of the traveling that he’s doing and all the campaigning he’s doing in our states on that relatively limited amount of money,” Wiener said. “It appears to us that the Bush campaign is using a variety of techniques to avoid the spending cap.”

Wiener said those techniques may include delaying the reporting of campaign expenditures, trying to take unlawful advantage of a loophole by allocating to state party committees or the national committee travel costs for so-called “party-building activities” and characterizing some trips as official business when they are essentially campaign appearances.