McCarthy, Wilson Fire Salvos Over Alleged Fudging on Campaign Law

Skirmishing broke out in the U.S. Senate race Saturday as Democratic challenger Leo T. McCarthy accused Sen. Pete Wilson of violating federal campaign laws and Wilson fired back with charges of his own.

Darry Sragow, director of Lt. Gov. McCarthy’s campaign, charged in a letter released to the press that the Republican senator’s campaign accepted $68,728 in “apparently illegal” contributions exceeding the $1,000 federal limit on individual donations.

The contributions from 97 separate individuals were over the limit by amounts ranging from $100 to $2,000, Sragow said. He suggested that “a dispassionate observer might view these apparent violations as systematic, and possibly intentional.”

‘Technical’ Errors

However, Otto Bos, manager of the Wilson campaign, responded that any such violations were “technical” errors in bookkeeping and charged that McCarthy had made similar mistakes of his own on several occasions. “Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black?” Bos asked in a letter to Sragow.

Bos also accused the Democratic candidate of subsidizing his current campaign by neglecting to pay back $337,000 he still owes from his 1986 race for lieutenant governor.

The charges and countercharges signaled an escalation in the Senate contest, in which both candidates have primarily focused on raising money for television advertising in the fall. Wilson has collected more than $9 million so far while McCarthy has raised more than $4.5 million, aides to the candidates said.

The McCarthy campaign’s attack came just as Wilson was joining his fellow Republicans in New Orleans for the GOP convention, where the senator is hoping for some time in the national media spotlight.

Federal elections law allows individuals to contribute no more than $1,000 for the primary election and $1,000 for the general. If a candidate receives more than that amount from an individual donor, the campaign is required to return the money.

The 97 cases cited by the McCarthy campaign, which were culled from Wilson’s campaign reports, include contributions to the senator dating back as far as 1984.

In each case, the contributors gave Wilson individual donations of $1,000 or less at different times. But when the contributions were added together their cumulative donations allegedly exceeded the limit.

Among those identified by the McCarthy campaign as giving more than the amount allowed included Gene Autry, owner of the California Angels ($1,000 over the limit); Leonard K. Firestone, former ambassador to Belgium ($1,500 over); William R. Hewlett, vice chairman of Hewlett-Packard ($250 over) and Alex G. Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers ($1,000 over).

“We are not nit-picking over technical violations of federal election law,” Sragow said in his letter. “If the Wilson political operation has in fact engaged in a systematic, deliberate violation of federal election law then we think this matter needs to be brought to the attention of the appropriate federal authorities and the people of California.”

Sragow also suggested that the Wilson campaign violated the law in a similar fashion in his 1982 campaign.

Bos said Wilson’s staff was reviewing the 97 cases to see if in fact any contributions had exceeded the limit.

“It’s laughable to think that if you were going to deliberately circumvent the $1,000 limit, you would put it down on paper for the whole world to see,” he said. “We have a bookkeeping process that is supposed to catch these things. If it didn’t catch it, we will correct it.”

Bos pointed out that Wilson has received more than 100,000 separate contributions and that the cases cited by the McCarthy campaign were about .2% of the total.

“This should not be a battle of bookkeepers, it should be a battle of campaign issues,” he said.

At the same time, Bos accused McCarthy of accepting several contributions that exceeded the federal limit and ignoring his campaign debt from the 1986 lieutenant governor’s race while raising money for the Senate race.

“Carrying a debt that size while raising several million more for a federal campaign could very possibly be construed as a de facto illegal subsidy,” Bos maintained in his letter.

In response, Sragow accused Bos of making “reckless charges” and denied that McCarthy has received any contributions over the limit. In addition, he said any debt from McCarthy’s 1986 campaign has no connection with the current race and “would not remotely be construed as a subsidy.”