Smith ad may violate campaign finance rules

U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith's (R-Pendleton) latest ad may violate Federal Elections Commission law and could cost the campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Smith is one of two Republican senators who may be violating an election rule that requires a candidate's image to be present at the end of an advertisement. While Smith's picture and disclaimer appear at the beginning of the ad, at the end of the ad, the disclaimer appears without the picture.

Television stations across Oregon have received a letter from U.S. Sen. candidate Jeff Merkley's (D-Portland) lawyers alerting them to the violation, and informing them that the punishment will be costly for Smith. Political campaigns receive a discount for their advertising, but Merkley's lawyers believe that if Smith has violated the rule, he should have to pay the full price.

"Smith and his campaign have forfeited their entitlement to the lowest unit charge for the duration of the campaign," lawyers Marc E. Elias, Ezra W. Reese, Kate Sawyer Keane, councils to Jeff Merkley for Oregon wrote. "Now and until Election Day, your station should charge Smith and his campaign committee the same rate for broadcast time that it charges non-political advertisers for comparable use."

Smith campaign spokeswoman Lindsay Gilbride said that getting a lecture on obeying campaign finance laws was quite ironic from the Merkley campaign, whom the Smith campaign accused of violating laws earlier in the summer by having the Democratic Party of Oregon air "issue ads" that featured Merkley.

"This is a frivolous claim and its laughable for Jeff Merkley to even mention campaign election laws given he has spent $750,000 blatantly violating them," she said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVlBlougLd4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR200809...