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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Reed, Riggs Spending Big Dollars Amounts Quite High For State Senate Race

In what once was a Democratic stronghold, a lone liberal lawmaker is fighting like Underdog to keep her seat.

Mary Lou Reed has raised more money in the past three months than she did during most of her 1994 campaign for her District 4 state Senate seat.

And she still hasn’t been able to shake her Republican challenger, Jack Riggs.

In her last campaign financial report, Reed reported she has raised $22,392.14, while Riggs reported taking in $18,009. Both candidates have raised the bulk of that money within the past two months.

After the report was filed, Riggs - along with several other Republican candidates for Idaho state offices - was given a $7,000 check from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

All told, “that’s a humongous amount of money for a state race,” said Florence A. Heffron, director of the University of Idaho’s Bureau of Public Affairs Research. She said campaigns are more expensive across the state this year.

The influx of national Republican campaign funds is a result of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that loosened the rules on campaign fund raising.

“This is a tough race,” Reed said. “In order to be competitive, I’m going to have to raise even more.”

Local Democrats are counting on Reed staying competitive because she’s one of the few Democratic lawmakers left from North Idaho.

In 1994, Democrats lost seven seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. Reed, a six-term senator, is one of only eight Democrats left in the Senate.

The year 1994 “was a real wake-up call to Democrats to realize that there are no safe seats,” she said.

Riggs said he knew he would have to raise a lot of money to gain name recognition to rival Reed’s.

“We knew if we were going to make a legitimate challenge, we would have to run a pretty high-profile campaign,” he said.

Riggs is spending thousands of dollars on T-shirts, balloons, newspaper, radio and television advertisements to make his name well-known to voters before the election.

With contributions piling up from businesses, business political action committees and individuals, Riggs has plenty of money to pay for an aggressive campaign.

“I’m not having meetings with business people, saying ‘If you do this, I’ll do that,”’ Riggs said. “It’s just, ‘I’m running, here’s my record. If you want to support me, that’s great.”’ Riggs criticized Reed’s contributions, because many of the larger ones came from individuals who live out-of-state. Reed said they’re old friends and relatives.

Linda Payne, the Kootenai County Democratic Party chairwoman, said that campaigns are becoming obscenely expensive, but she doesn’t fault Reed’s fund raising - and she hopes that she wins.

“This is going to be a critical year for Idaho Democrats, because we do not have balance in our government,” she said. “If we don’t get that balance, we really are going to become a one-party state.”

Reed’s biggest contributions include $1,000 from a Northwest Iron Workers PAC; $1,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 77 PAC; $1,000 from William F. Heidenreich of Marquette, Iowa; $500 from the Political Action Committee for Education; $500 from Marian S. Heiskell of New York, and $500 from the Washington Teamsters.

Riggs’ biggest contributions include a $5,000 loan to himself; $1,000 from Timber PAC; $500 from Tom Addis of Coeur d’Alene; $500 from Windermere Realtor Don Smock; $1,000 from the Idaho Committee on Hospitality & Sports PAC; $400 from the Idaho Association of Realtors and $500 from Janis and Rudolf Kreps of Coeur d’Alene.

, DataTimes