Group launches $665,000 campaign to unseat Musgrave

6 Oct 2008 // An environmental group is spending $665,000 on a new television ad campaign attacking Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, doubling down on its efforts to unseat the three-term Republican incumbent, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission Sunday.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund already has spent more than $580,000 targeting Musgrave, including about $400,000 to broadcast two earlier television commercials.

All told, Defenders and two other independent groups have spent about $1.9 million targeting Musgrave in this election. The $665,000 ad buy is the largest single independent expenditure in any House race in the country this year, according to a database maintained by the Web site Swing State Project.

"Marilyn Musgrave is wrong if she thinks that throwing desperate and baseless attacks against her challenger will let her hide her atrocious record of giving billions in tax breaks to big oil while voting against lower fuel costs for drivers and co-sponsoring legislation to enrich her family by thousands of dollars per year on their fancy coin collections," said Ed Yoon, Defenders' campaign manager in Colorado and New Mexico. We will keep informing voters of her out-of-touch and self-enriching priorities."

Musgrave's campaign manager, Jason Thielman, said she is being targeted by "radical out-of-state interest groups." He said the groups are helping to mask the lack of substantive positions taken by Democratic challenger Betsy Markey.

He said "the only thing we know about Betsy is that she ran a company that secured millions of dollars of government contract in violation of government acquisition regulations, and her family's business continued to masquerade as a woman-owned business when it wasn't, presumably to gain an advantage over other small business owners."

No government agency has found any wrongdoing by Markey or her family's business, Syscom Services. Her husband, Jim Kelly, has said Syscom changed the woman-owned designation when Markey divested her majority interest but the change wasn't reflected in some federal databases.

The latest TV ad features two charges that have become something of a staple in anti-Musgrave advertising over the past two elections - that she has received significant campaign contributions from the oil industry while voting to give them tax breaks; and that she's been named one of the most corrupt members of Congress.

The new ad also says Musgrave backed a bill that would benefit her family by reducing taxes on coin and precious metal investments.

The "most corrupt" designation has been criticized as misleading by previous independent media fact-checking. The rating came from a group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which Republicans have criticized as a liberal attack group.

The allegation that led to the designation - that Musgrave improperly used her government office space for campaign purposes - was eventually dismissed by the Federal Election Commission.

Musgrave was one of nine co-sponsors of a bill that would lower taxes on capital gains from investments in coins and precious metals. The bill has been stuck in committee since being filed last year.

Her personal financial disclosure showed that her husband had investments in coins and precious metals that yielded capital gains of between $15,000 and $50,000 in 2007. The bill would have lowered the Musgraves' tax bill by $2,000 to $6,500.

Thielman has said it's ridiculous to say that members of Congress have a conflict of interest when they vote to cut taxes. He said Musgrave has consistently voted to cut a wide range of taxes that would benefit a broad range of Americans.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund is a 501(c)4 nonprofit corporation. Under federal tax law, they are not required to disclose their donors and have consistently declined to do so.

Under federal election law, the group must remain separate from Markey's campaign and must not coordinate campaign activities with the challenger.