Rolla, Mo., man alleges Sowers campaign violated election law

The former mayor of Rolla, Mo., has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission claiming that congressional candidate Tommy Sowers violated fundraising laws by combining a Washington, D.C., campaign event with a product launch.

Sowers, a Democrat challenging seven-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Cape Girardeau Republican, raised money at a June 8 event headlined by retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Democratic national chairman Howard Dean and Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter.

In the complaint filed June 10 and announced this week in a Missouri Republican Party news release, real estate broker Floyd Ferrell alleges that the fundraiser violated the law because it also focused on the product launch of Square, a device that allows credit card transactions via mobile phones.

Ferrell, reached by telephone Wednesday, declined to answer questions about his complaint and deferred to Lloyd Smith for comment. Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, is Emerson's former chief of staff.

"The only comments I have are right in the letter," Ferrell said.

Smith did not return a call seeking comment. In the news release, he said: "This complaint makes a persuasive case that Tommy Sowers violated the law when he held a dual fundraiser and corporate product launch in Washington, D.C. Either Sowers does not know the law, or he willfully flaunted it. Regardless, this demonstrates once again that he is simply not ready for prime time."

The announcement of the complaint comes at the end of the quarterly fundraising period. Sowers has raised more for his campaign than any other Democrat who has challenged Emerson since she was first elected in 1996. His campaign has been sending out urgent e-mails to supporters seeking additional contributions to reach $1 million.

Sowers' campaign manager, Jonathan Feifs, said the complaint is an attempt to distract the campaign. The campaign has received no notice from the FEC that an actual complaint has been filed, he said. Campaign attorneys reviewed all the materials related to the fundraiser and saw no problem, he added.

"This is not the first time in political campaigns that folks have tried to use supposed FEC complaints to distract other campaigns," he said, "This is just sort of D.C. politics as usual."

The complaint claims that Sowers violated the law by "receiving contributions facilitated by corporate resources" and concludes that the event was an "impermissible use of corporate resources to engage in fundraising activities in connection with a federal election," the news release said.

To support the allegation, the news release included a reference to an advisory opinion issued in 2007. In that opinion, the FEC told a candidate not to include the name of employers of contributors on placards announcing who was sponsoring holes in a fundraising golf tournament. Doing so, the FEC said, would give improper corporate support to a federal candidate even if no corporate money or official corporate sponsorship was involved.

The company that makes Square and its software is a vendor to the campaign, Feifs said. The device has been used at several fundraisers to make giving easier, he said.

The key difference between the golf tournament fundraiser and the Washington, D.C., event is that sponsors of each hole had paid for the privilege and adding the company name advertised the affiliation, Feifs said. "You had paid some money to sponsor this hole," Feifs said. Square wasn't a sponsor of the Washington event, he said.

"The only people who paid any money to have this event was us," he said.

Sowers is unopposed in the Democratic primary. Emerson faces a challenge from tea party activist and Texas County farmer Bob Parker in the Aug. 3 Republican primary. Other candidates are Libertarian Rick Vandeven of Chaffee and Independent Larry Bill of Jackson, who is seeking signatures to gain a spot on the November ballot.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Rolla, MO