Governor still raising cash

BOISE – Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is coming under fire for raising thousands in campaign funds, although he’s not running for re-election, and then using the money in part for lunches out, flowers, candy, travel and gifts.

“We’re using it to cover the expenses because there’s not an expense account,” Kempthorne said Monday, adding that he plans to continue to raise and spend campaign money and to pay off campaign debts. “This is money from contributors to help us with political activities and with those expenses that should not be charged to the state.”

Some of the governor’s largest contributions in the past six months have come from companies that directly benefited from legislation he supported in this year’s legislative session.

“The timing alone would raise eyebrows,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and a noted expert on campaign finance issues. However, he said, “Almost all governors have these funds now. … They’re slush funds of a certain sort, they really are. And they’re used by public officials for virtually everything under the sun.”

Richard Stallings, chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party and a former four-term congressman, said, “I’ve been in politics long enough to know that these corporations don’t just give money because they’re nice people. They contribute to politicians because they want something in return, and I think it really looks very suspect. … That’s one of the problems when you have a one-party state – they don’t think anybody cares.”

Mike Reynoldson, lobbyist for Micron Technology, said his firm agreed to make its $1,250 donation to the campaign back in December as part of a sponsorship of a Governor’s Ball/Legislative Gala event in January.

The event was a joint fund-raiser for the Kempthorne campaign and the Idaho Republican Party. The money initially went to the party; then, after it had sorted out expenses and split the proceeds, the party sent the checks to the campaign on April 14.

Reynoldson said Micron, which got two major tax-break bills passed this year, long has supported Kempthorne “because he’s a pro-business governor, and he’s done good things for the state as a whole.”

Jim Schmit, president of Qwest Corp., told the Post Register newspaper in Idaho Falls that his firm doesn’t mind donating to a governor who’s not seeking re-election. “As long as he’s in office, he’s in office,” Schmit said.

Kempthorne still has a debt from his last campaign of about $70,000, according to his midyear report filed with the Idaho secretary of state’s office. Though he has paid off some longstanding bills during the past six months, he also has spent nearly $20,000 more than he has raised.

The report shows that from Jan. 1 to June 30, the Kempthorne campaign received $61,525 in contributions and spent $79,830. It had a beginning cash balance of $26,130, so it ended the period with just $7,824 and outstanding bills of $70,543.

The governor, in an emotional announcement on live television during his State of the State address this year, said he won’t seek a third term in office. However, under state law, he technically is considered a candidate and allowed to continue raising campaign funds until he fails to file for the next election.

Kempthorne, questioned by reporters Monday about the issue, said he’s using campaign funds for both debt reduction and continuing expenses, including some related to trips he has taken to Republican Governors Association meetings. “That certainly is not an expense that should be given to the state,” he said.

He also acknowledged frequent expenditures for lunch in downtown Boise near his state Capitol office. Kempthorne said by picking up the tab on his campaign credit card, he is avoiding any “sense of impropriety” if someone else buys him lunch, plus he is saving taxpayers the expense.

Sabato said, “I don’t think there’s a taxpayer in Idaho that would disagree with that. The real question is whether it should be done at all. There’s a third option: Don’t do it.”

Jim Hansen, a former Democratic state senator who now heads United Vision for Idaho, a watchdog group that advocates public funding of campaigns, said, “People should be outraged.”

“If one of his department heads had this fund where he was accepting money from people who do business with the department and then was spending it on whatever he needed, meals, etc., that’d be a clear violation of Idaho’s ethics laws and he’d probably be fired,” Hansen said. “But because he’s an elected official, he can pretend like he’s running for re-election, even though he says he’s not, and then use this fund to continue to raise money from people who do business with the state.”

Hansen said the situation shows the problems with a campaign system that’s financed entirely by private funds and has no spending limits. “Without spending limits, you can do exactly as the governor and many candidates have done, and that is spend themselves into huge debt, anticipating that if they win, they will have political power to pay off that debt from continued fund raising.”

Kempthorne’s campaign finance report shows that he paid off a $21,000 bill to Virginia campaign consultant Tony Payton and made a $20,789 payment on an outstanding $91,989 bill from MPGH Agency, also in Virginia, for media production.

He also charged more than $11,500 to his campaign credit card for “travel, meals and lodging,” including $318 to the Chocolate Bar, a fancy chocolate store in downtown Boise on May 9; three different small purchases at a dollar store in Boise in December; meals at Boise restaurants including Bitter Creek Alehouse, Raedeans, Big Jud’s, Shorty’s Diner, McDonald’s, Pair, Cottonwood Grille, Jakers, Emilio’s, Café de Paris, Le Poulet Rouge and Sizzler; airfare and lodging for several trips; $1,800 to the Republican Governors Association in January; purchases from bookstores, gift shops and sweet shops; $55.30 at Boise at Its Best Flowers in February; and a $537.50 towing charge in West Sacramento, Calif., on April 23 for which Kempthorne later reimbursed the campaign.

Kempthorne’s chief of staff, Brian Whitlock, said, “Those kinds of gifts, flowers, condolences, lunches for interns, lunches with department heads, lunches with college and university presidents – those kinds of expenses will be throughout his report and in upcoming reports as well.”

On Monday, for example, Whitlock said, Kemp-thorne took three college interns to lunch to thank them for their summer’s work. “There’s not a mechanism in the state, or a business account, for the governor to necessarily do that,” Whitlock said. “It doesn’t fall within the travel guidelines.”

Stallings noted that the governor is paid $98,500 a year plus a $4,500 monthly housing allowance. “Most of us have to live within our means,” he said.

He added, “It makes you wonder what these big corporations have in mind when they pour cash into the governor’s slush account and then show up at the Statehouse asking for laws that would benefit them.”