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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Wisconsin candidate cribbed website passages

A Wisconsin GOP congressional candidate, Chad Lee, from whose campaign website Idaho congressional candidate Vaughn Ward had borrowed word-for-word an issue position statement on jobs that Ward removed from his site last week after the similarities were reported, has now acknowledged that Lee staffers lifted entire passages on his site on immigration, the economy, taxes and more from the websites of two sitting Wisconsin GOP congressmen, Reps. Paul Ryan and Sean Duffy. WISC-TV in Madison reported that representatives for the Ryan and Duffy campaigns said everything on their sites was written by them and was not taken from outside sources or the Republican Party. Among Lee's passages borrowed from Ryan was one about an immigration bill Ryan had introduced, suggesting that Lee, too, had introduced such a bill; Lee's not an incumbent.

Ward had a similar claim in his now-pulled issue statement on trade, in which he referred to "my roadmap legislation." That's actually Wisconsin Rep. Ryan's sweeping "Roadmap for America's Future" legislation, versions of which Ryan proposed both in 2008 and again this year. Ward now has no issue position statements on his campaign website, while Lee has replaced two of his with notes that the page is under construction; you can see the Wisconsin TV station's report here.



Eye On Boise

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