TOBACCO VOTES-FOR-ADS CHARGE BEING INVESTIGATED BY JUSTICE

Mercury News Wire Services

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is looking into allegations that
Senate Republicans traded their votes for promises by the tobacco industry
to finance advertising campaigns.

Ranit Schmelzer, press secretary for Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle
of South Dakota, said the department told Daschle of the preliminary
investigation in response to questions he raised about reports tobacco
companies had promised favorable political advertising in exchange for a
senator's vote on specific legislation.

``Sen. Daschle is gratified that they are looking into it and awaits their
final response,'' Schmelzer said Saturday.

The Baltimore Sun reported Saturday that Assistant Attorney General Anthony
Sutin told the senator in a letter that the allegation ``raises concerns
under the bribery and gratuity statutes.''

``The criminal division is presently examining this allegation to determine
whether any further investigation is warranted,'' the letter said.

Michael Gordon, a Justice Department official, told the Associated Press
only that the department is ``reviewing concerns'' that Daschle raised last
month in his letter to Attorney General Janet Reno.

Scott Williams, a tobacco-industry official in Washington, did not
immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

In his letter, Daschle said tobacco and health insurance companies might
have violated federal law with million-dollar advertising blitzes and
should be added to the Justice Department's inquiry into campaign-finance
abuses.

The South Dakota senator said the investigation should be based in part on
a complaint against tobacco companies filed with the Federal Election
Commission by the National Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The complaint was based on news reports of a comment made in private by
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.. It alleged that the industry was adding to its
$40 million advertising campaign new ads endorsing Republican senators who
voted June 17 to kill the Senate's tobacco bill.

Such ads, according to the group, would violate federal election law that
prohibits corporations from contributing specifically to campaigns of
federal candidates.

According to news reports, McConnell told his colleagues in a private
meeting of GOP senators the day the bill was shelved that the industry
would run ads supporting senators who voted to kill it.

McConnell denies any quid pro quo. He says he received no assurances from
the industry before the vote. Instead, said McConnell's press officer,
Robert Steurer, the senator merely made ``a statement of the obvious'':
that he was sure the industry would continue to run advertisements simply
because it would be in the industry's best interest to do so.

But Daschle argued in his letter that the complaint ``makes a persuasive
case that this next phase of advertising is solely intended to affect the
outcome of federal elections, not public policy.''

1997 - 1998 Mercury Center.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski