By Larry Lipman, Cox News Service, May 11, 2007

11 May 2007 // WASHINGTON — A non-partisan ethics watchdog group filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission alleging that U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez did not fully disclose information about nearly half of his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign contributors.

The complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) grew out of an FEC audit last month that found numerous violations of federal election laws during Martinez's campaign in Florida.

"The violations committed by Martinez for Senate are unprecedented in both size and scope," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said in a statement.

"Basically, Mel Martinez broke the law in order to win an election. Now, years later, he is a sitting senator and the chairman of the Republican (Party). A failure by the FEC to severely sanction the Martinez for Senate campaign committee will demonstrate that violating the law pays," Sloan said.

A CREW news release said the organization wants the FEC to sanction Martinez's campaign for the amount of the violations, nearly $800,000.

An FEC spokeswoman acknowledged that the complaint had been received, but declined to comment. So far, the FEC has not taken any action against the Martinez campaign as a result of the audit.

Martinez's Washington-based campaign attorney, Benjamin Ginsberg, called the complaint a public relations effort by a partisan group and noted that the FEC already was aware of everything in the complaint because it was based on the commission's audit.

"CREW comes up with these complaints and you guys (the news media) breathlessly report it," Ginsberg said. "They get a bump in publicity and a year later the complaint gets dismissed and you guys don't know about it."

Ginsberg noted that CREW filed a complaint against the Martinez campaign last year in conjunction with campaign contributions from the Bacardi beverage and rum company.

The FEC dismissed that complaint last month but it received little notice.

CREW has repeatedly filed complaints against Republican officials but has criticized some Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. It recently criticized Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Pembroke Pines, for contributions she received from an unpaid advisor to an autism school in Miami-Dade Country for which she helped obtain federal money. CREW did not file a complaint against Wasserman Schultz.

Ginsberg acknowledged that in the closing weeks of the 2004 race in which Martinez narrowly beat Democrat Betty Castor, "Yes, there were mistakes made."

But he said the campaign has since implemented new policies and procedures for handling campaign contributions. He noted that the campaign has been working with the FEC for months to resolve questions about the 2004 reports.

The FEC audit found that Martinez's campaign did not list occupation and/or employer information for 46 percent of the people who contributed to his campaign. It also found that Martinez did not provide any information about donors who contributed approximately $320,000.

The FEC also reported that Martinez's campaign accepted $313,325 in contributions that exceeded federal limits, and that he did not timely report more than $140,000 given 20 days before the election. The Martinez campaign said last month that he had returned about $97,000 in excess contributions.