NHDP FILES FEC COMPLAINT AGAINST SUNUNU FRONT GROUP'S ILLEGAL ATTACKS ON GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN
New ad from Washington group Americans for Job Security violates federal election laws
(Manchester, NH) - The New Hampshire Democratic Party announced today that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that Americans for Job Security (AJS) is violating federal election laws by running radio ads attacking former Gov. and current U.S. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen. AJS is a Washington group with a long history of illegal campaign activities and close ties to John Sununu.
"John Sununu and his Washington attack machine have already launched the first negative ad of the campaign because they know Sununu can't run on his record of voting 90% of the time with George Bush," said NH Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley. "Illegal campaigning is nothing new for Sununu and his outside interest groups, but no amount of attack ads will distract from the fact that Sununu has voted with Bush 90% of the time, has run up our national debt to record levels, and has voted to protect $17 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies. That's why John Sununu is just part of the problem, and his negative campaigning won't cover up the facts."
AJS is nothing more than a Republican front group, and its leaders have close connections to John Sununu. The current president of AJS is Steve DeMaura, former executive director of the NH Republican Party. And AJS's executive director in 2002 was David Carney, director of the effort to "draft" John Sununu into running for Senate in 2002 and a longtime political ally of Sununu's father.
AJS recently began airing nearly $90,000 in radio ads attacking Gov. Shaheen's record. The same group spent over $1 million attacking Shaheen in the 2002 Senate race. AJS has a long history of illegal campaign tactics. Public Citizen filed a complaint with the IRS in 2007 requesting that they revoke AJS's tax status because they were breaking election laws. And AJS had to pay a fine in 2006 for breaking Oklahoma's Telephone Consumer Protection Act in connection with a congressional race.
AJS has not filed with the FEC as a political campaign committee, which means they cannot run advertisements to influence the outcome of a federal campaign. Instead, AJS has hidden behind another section of the tax code in order to hide the identities of their campaign contributors. This means AJS can hide their contributors from public scrutiny, and may be illegally funneling corporate money into the election.
