U.S. Senate candidate Allan Lichtman is accusing fellow Democrat Kweisi Mfume of accepting $7,000 in campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, which Mfume had promised earlier that he would not do.
Mfume campaign officials said the money has been returned, and the transactions will be recorded in a report due in August.
Noting that Mfume received $5,000 from the Amalgamated Life PAC in March, Lichtman asked in an e-mail, “is this really a case of the immaculate reception, with PAC money just appearing in the Mfume campaign, unbeknownst to the candidate and his staff?”
Mfume spokesman Mark Clack said that Mfume does accept money from union political action committees because they “represent working people.” But the former congressman doesn?t accept money from corporate PACs, since they are often seeking access to federal legislators to work against consumer interests.
“The question about Amalgamated was who actually controlled it,” Clack said. “I believed it?s owned by the unions. ? Ultimately the decision was made to send it back because it looked too much like a corporation.”
The union, now called United Here, has endorsed Mfume and has contributed to his campaign.
“It?s a gray area,” Clack said. “It looked inconsistent on its face.”
Mfume headed to Boston Monday for a fundraiser and is scheduled to hold a major fundraiser in Los Angeles later this month. But spokesman Clack admitted that the campaign would not have enough money to do any TV advertising to match the barrage of commercials Cardin is set to launch later this month. Cardin made a down payment of $680,000 on pre-primary commercials, almost as much as Mfume had raised as of June 30.
