Story Created:
Oct 3, 2006 at 5:54 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Oct 3, 2006 at 5:54 PM EDT
Campaign contributions for Senator Ray Meier, from some high profile Republicans, are now under fire because of the recent Mark Foley scandal. Meier's opponent, Democrat Michael Arcuri, spent a portion of his press conference on stem cell research to attack Meier's campaign-- specifically a $25,000 campaign contribution from three congressmen who are now under fire for possibly knowing about the Foley situation, shortly after it began.
Arcuri says Meier has taken $10,000 from house speaker Dennis Hastert's political action committee; $10,000 from Buffalo Representative Tom Reynolds's PAC; and $4,500 from Ohio Representative John Boehner's PAC.
"The hypocrisy of this is just incredible," says Mike Arcuri. "I look at the running ads-- the money I took and gave back. They're getting the money to run those ads from people like Foley... now they're using that to do attack ads on my character-- personal attacks on me, and the money came from somebody like Foley."
Meier's camp responded by calling for a complete investigation by the FBI, with special attention to those who knew about Foley's behavior, when they knew it, and why it took so long for these matters to be confronted. Meier says action needs to be taken to protect these young people.
In the meantime, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee gave us a quote. They say the situation is "totally inappropriate" for Democrats to try and politicize this situation.
