Andrew Augustus, WPRO News
The Rhode Island Republican Party says the latest Raimondo/Reed advertisement is an illegal contribution to the Raimondo Campaign.
“There has been federal money spent to promote Gina Raimondo for Governor through this commercial and the way they’re trying to get around that is the short little blurb at the end of it that says you should vote for Jack Reed,” said chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party Mark Smiley.
Rhode Island General Law states that a political party may not make a contribution to a candidate of the same party, including the cost of any preparation and airing of television and/or radio advertisements that exceeds $25,000 within a calendar year.
Smiley claims the cost of airing the Raimondo ad has been reported to be $90,000.
The first 28 seconds of the ad talks about Raimondo’s run for governor. During the last four seconds of the ad a picture of Jack Reed with Raimondo appears with a voiceover of Reed saying, “I’m Jack Reed and I approve this message too.” The ad can be seen Gina Raimondo’s YouTube channel.
The Republicans are working on a complaint for the Board of Elections for Rhode Island and at the Federal Election Commission on Washington.
They are calling for the removal of the ads as soon as possible.
Coordinated campaign leader State Representative Joe Shekarchi released the following statement, “The Republican chairman simply doesn’t know what he is talking about. The ad follows the law completely. State parties have a federal account (governed by federal law) and a nonfederal account (governed by state law). When a state party pays for an ad that includes “express advocacy” on behalf of a federal candidate (words like “vote” or “oppose”), which this ad clearly does, it is governed by federal law and must be paid 100% from the federal account. It would have violated federal law to use the nonfederal account to pay for this ad. Because the ad was governed by federal law, the federal coordinated spending limit – not the $25,000 nonfederal coordinated limit applies.”
