Gephardt Attacks Dean on Enron Deal

Democratic presidential candidates Richard A. Gephardt and Howard Dean clashed Saturday in an intensifying dispute over the former Vermont governor’s efforts to woo business to his state, including a company created by Enron Corp.

The finger-pointing came as Dean was readying a foreign policy speech for Monday in Los Angeles.

One day after reports emerged that Dean had aggressively courted a segment of the insurance industry known as “captive” insurers to his state, Gephardt said the former governor should disclose records of any dealings he may have had with Enron, which has since filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Texas-based energy company established a subsidiary, known as a captive insurer, in Vermont in 1994 to save money, according to published reports. That was three years after Dean became governor and a year after Vermont enacted a tax break for such subsidiaries.

Gephardt, in a campaign swing through this pivotal southern state, challenged Dean to “stop hiding behind executive privilege when it comes to his dealings with Enron.”

His remark was intended to strike a double-blow at the front runner in the Democratic race by linking him to the tarnished company and by reminding voters that Dean sealed many of his gubernatorial records from public inspection before leaving office early this year.

Dean scoffed at the Enron-related charge, saying the company “never got any tax breaks from Vermont.” He did not elaborate in his comments to reporters en route from Iowa to Atlanta.

Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, said the candidate’s efforts as governor to bring the captive insurance industry and other businesses to the state helped build Vermont’s economy. “If the Democrats in Congress, like Dick Gephardt, had produced a record like that, they’d still be in charge of Congress,” Trippi said.

A Dean spokesman, Jay Carson, noted that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $176,000 from Enron in recent years while Gephardt was House minority leader. Gephardt did not dispute that assertion, and noted the donations were a matter of public record. Asked whether he had personally solicited funds from Enron executives, the Missouri congressman said, “Not that I know of.”

The spat came as the two rivals, who are leading polls in Iowa in advance of the state’s Jan. 19 caucuses, sought to project fresh momentum. Gephardt toured South Carolina by bus with Democratic Rep.James E. Clyburn, who endorsed him last week.

Clyburn is South Carolina’s most prominent African American politician. South Carolina’s Feb. 3 primary would be the first major test of strength for the Democratic candidates among minority voters.

Dean, meanwhile, received the backing Saturday of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. And his campaign released a memorandum outlining his Monday speech.

High on Dean’s agenda, the memo states, is a global alliance to fight terrorism. “Just as important as finding [Osama] bin Laden is finding and eliminating sleeper cells of nuclear, chemical and biological terror,” Dean says in the memo. “Our global alliance will place its strongest emphasis on this most lethal form of terror.”

Dean also wants to boost funding for a program to reduce lethal stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

Anderson reported from South Carolina; Gold from Miami.