Duane Sand, North Dakota Republican candidate for Congress, said Thursday his Democratic opponent received thousands of dollars from financial institutions in the weeks and days leading up to a congressional bailout of the financial industry.
"This is unbelievable," Sand said at a news conference in Fargo, during which he blasted his rival, Earl Pomeroy.
"We need to know, Earl, why did you vote to bail out the banks?" Sand said.
Sandra Salstrom, a spokeswoman for Pomeroy's campaign, said Pomeroy receives support from many sectors, and campaign contributions arrive all year long.
She said there was no significance to the timing of the Wall Street vote and the donations, which she said were received during the course of several weeks.
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"Congressman Pomeroy voted for this bill because it was necessary to keep credit available to North Dakota families and businesses," Salstrom said. "This was necessary to keep our economy functioning.
"He (Sand) has decided to take the low road in a very desperate attempt to try to avoid his third overwhelming defeat here in North Dakota," Salstrom said, referring to Sand's past election bids.
Pomeroy's campaign received at least $16,000 in the weeks and days leading up to Oct. 3, when Congress voted to provide financial institutions with more than $700 billion, according to Sand, who cited Federal Election Commission figures for donations from political action committees.
Sand said 75 percent of all Pomeroy campaign contributions came from PACs, while 99.2 percent of his own campaign funding came from individual citizens.
Salstrom said Pomeroy has received support from nearly 1,000 North Dakota donors who have contributed an average of $153 during this campaign cycle.
She said since about 1992, Pomeroy has received a total of $263,850 from financial institutions.
According to the Federal Election Commission Web site, recent donations to Pomeroy's campaign include:
n $2,000 from Aegon on Sept. 8.
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n $2,500 from American Express on Sept. 18.
n $1,500 from General Electric on Sept. 18.
n $3,000 from Wells Fargo on Sept. 18.
n $2,500 from the American Bankers Association on Sept. 19.
n $1,000 from Thrivent Financial on Sept. 24.
n $1,000 from US Bancorp on Sept. 24.
n $3,000 from UBS on Sept. 30.
The FEC Web site shows Sand recently received these PAC donations:
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n $5,000 from Freedom's Defense Fund.
n $5,000 from Veteran's for Victory PAC.
n $2,300 from Vet's for Freedom PAC.
At his news conference, Sand repeatedly expressed dismay at the timing of the vote and donations.
"It's almost too incredible to wrap your mind around, how a congressman in Washington, who is voting to bail out corporations and banks ... would accept money from them the same week he's voting to bail them out.
"It's astonishing," he said.
Write-in hopefuls
Three North Dakotans have been qualified for write-in candidate status on North Dakota's statewide ballot.
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The three don't include a Barney, N.D., farmer, Gregg Boyer, who has campaigned for a year or more.
North Dakota law requires write-in candidates to file a certificate of write-in candidacy; otherwise, county auditors do not have to count those votes.
The deadline for filing the certificate for statewide offices was Tuesday. Secretary of State Al Jaeger said Boyer mailed a certificate that was postmarked Wednesday and arrived Thursday.
Those who did file are Gilbert Gimbel of Hazelton for the U.S. House, Roland Riemers of Emerado for governor and Bismarck lawyer Robert V. Bolinske for the state Supreme Court.
Riemers has been a candidate in many past elections, including as an independent candidate for the U. S. House in 2006, Libertarian candidate for governor in 2004, independent candidate for the state House from District 43 in 2002 and in North Dakota's Democratic presidential primary in 1996.
Bolinske unsuccessfully petitioned in September to have his name on the ballot for Supreme Court but learned he would have had to file petitions in April.
The first item came from Dave Olson of The Forum, the second from Janelle Cole of Forum Communications' State Capitol Bureau.
