Contact:

• Robert Bohm, Campaign Coordinator
  (302)239-2572  rebsalerno@msn.com

• J. Roy Cannon, Media Committee
  (302)738-9963  jcannon11@comcast.net

Wilmington, DE:  Although for months Attorney General Candidate Vivian Houghton has raised the issue of how corporate campaign contributions contaminate the other Attorney General candidates and weaken their ability to be hard on corporate crime,  Mr. Schnee has previously sided with Ms. Brady by acting dumbfounded at what he considered the foolishness of Ms. Houghton's position.  

"This is a hundred percent ridiculous," Mr. Schnee insisted in a televised debate on Ch. 28 in June when Ms. Houghton stated that Ms. Brady and Mr. Schnee were less likely than she was to prosecute corporate crime because they both were beholden to the companies that financially support their campaigns and the two parties' infrastructures.  

Over the following months, until now, Mr. Schnee refused to even acknowledge the possibility of political corruption. As he persisted in his refusal, Ms. Houghton  hammered home the point that it was precisely such corruption (the kind that Mr. Schnee dismissed as unsubstantiated) that helped create a political climate in which Motiva, Metachem, Sunoco, General Chemical and other multi-million dollar companies have gotten away with only token fines while dumping carcinogens in our soil, spewing poisons in the air, and fouling our water.  

Now that Mr. Schnee lags behind in the race, he has suddenly reversed himself in a key issue in order to rev up his dispirited campaign.  

Unfortunately for Mr. Schnee, he  is like the pot calling the kettle black when he he accuses Ms. Brady of being contaminated by corporate funds.  He also is contaminated, just as Ms. Brady is. 

Like Mr. Schnee, Ms. Brady also scoffs at the idea that big money buys political influence.  At the same debate mentioned above, she denied that corporate contributions could buy influence with candidates.  She said, "Anyone who thinks that . . . is mistaken."  

Yet of all people, Ms. Brady should know the power of money in politics.  Among Republican attorneys general, she is one of the loudest voices in support of those corporations who oppose multi-state lawsuits against industries like the pharmaceutical industry.  This is why she turned down a request from Nevada officials to team up with them in their recent suit against 12 major drug companies.  Nevada has charged the companies with grossly inflating the costs of prescription drugs and thereby Medicare and Medicaid as well as individual patients. Those hurt the most by such cost gouging are of course the poor, working people and seniors.  

Ms. Brady also knows about the politically corrupting power of corporate money because of what goes on under her own nose right here in Delaware.  One of the things that's been going on under her nose is MBNA's exploration of ways to skirt local and federal campaign donation laws.  As a result of MBNA's borderline contribution practices, the credit card company now finds itself under investigation by the Federal Election Commission for allegedly providing Congressman Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, with an illegal loan in order to buy the congressman's support for new bankruptcy legislation that MBNA wants passed.  

Unlike either Schnee or Brady, Ms. Houghton has stuck by her word to neither accept corporate contributions or PAC money.  

Ms. Houghton invites her opponents, particularly Mr. Schnee who is such a Johnny-come-lately on this issue, to return all corporate and PAC money as a way of establishing political independence.  If a candidate isn't willing to do this, they are all mouth and no action on this issue. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Committee to Elect Vivian Houghton Attorney General
800 West Street
Wilmington, Delaware 19801
(302)239-2572
agcandidate@vivianhoughton.com
http://vivianhoughton.com/vivian

Green Party of Delaware
P. O. Box 6044
Wilmington, Delaware 19804
(302)738-9963
greenpartyde@yahoo.com
http://www.gpde.org