Senate Aide Admits Threatening Vote Group’s Tax-Exempt Status

Sen. Jim Sasser’s campaign press secretary denied he threatened a voter information group’s tax-exempt status. Then he was confronted with a tape of the conversation.

“It was a remark I shouldn’t have made,” Jim Pratt said last week, acknowledging the threat. “I had no intention of following through on it.”

The threat came in a phone conversation the previous week with an executive of Project Vote Smart, which distributes information about candidates’ background and voting records to the public.

The nonpartisan organization had warned recently that it would publicize Sasser’s failure to fill out one of its surveys. During the phone conversation, Pratt said Project Vote Smart’s tax-exempt status barred it from such political moves.

Referring to Richard Kimball, the organization’s director, Pratt warned, “Frankly, if he carries through with what he’s threatening to do to us, we’re going to file a complaint with the IRS about his tax status.”

Last Thursday, after Kimball accused Pratt of making the threat, Pratt told an Associated Press reporter that Kimball was lying and that he would demand a retraction if any story were written. But later in the day, after reading a transcript of the tape, Pratt backed down.

Sasser said that Pratt was following office policy not to respond to questionnaires and that he will remain as spokesman for the campaign.

“I told him I disapproved of his actions but in the heat of a campaign sometimes people blow off steam,” the senator said Friday. “That’s the first time it’s ever happened with James Pratt, and he has given me his word it will never happen again.”

The three-term Democrat is engaged in a reelection fight against Republican Bill Frist, a heart surgeon making his first bid for office.

Project Vote Smart, based in Corvallis, Ore., was founded by former Presidents Carter and Ford and other politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.