For Immediate Release: January 18, 2006
Contact: Ned Wigglesworth

Abramoff Made Additional $10,000 Personal Contribution to Doolittle State PAC

Brent Wilkes' Company ADCS Gave $10,000 to Same Committee

State Committee Helped Bury Contribution; Spokesperson Caught in Error
Congressman Has Long Sought to Weaken Campaign Finance Laws

Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff personally gave $10,000 to Rep. John Doolittle's Superior California State Leadership PAC in 2000, bringing Abramoff's total personal contributions to Doolittle to $14,000. A Doolittle spokesperson has asserted that Doolittle received only $4,000 from Abramoff. According to campaign watchdog TheRestofUs.org, the contribution is consistent with Doolittle's checkered history on campaign fundraising issues.

"Congressman Doolittle has been at the forefront of the effort to weaken this country's campaign funding laws, a move designed to give the Jack Abramoffs of this world even more influence over the decisions of our government," said Ned Wigglesworth, analyst for TheRestofUs.org. "In John Doolittle's perfect world, Abramoff's $10,000 contribution would have been $1 million."

The $10,000 contribution is believed to be the largest single contribution from Abramoff to a politician's committee. Brent Wilkes, one of the as yet unindicted alleged co-conspirators of resigned former congressman Duke Cunningham, gave $10,000 to the same state PAC in 2002 through his company ADCS, Inc. Both contributions would be illegal now under the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

As Congress sought to pass campaign finance reform in the 1990's, Doolittle repeatedly introduced amendments which would have repealed all federal contributions limits and ended the program of voluntary public financing for presidential candidates. His repeal amendments never garnered more the votes of more than 131 of his colleagues. He voted against the Shays reform bill all three times he had the chance; each time it passed.

In 2005, Doolittle joined forces with Congressional Democrats to petition the Federal Elections Commission to raise donations without limits to oppose Governor Schwarzenegger's redistricting reform efforts.

Doolittle has come under increasing scrutiny for his financial ties to Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes. In addition to campaign contributions from Wilkes and Abramoff, Doolittle has accepted discounted travel from Wilkes and the use of Abramoff's skybox and restaurant for fundraising from Abramoff. Doolittle's wife Julie, who has made $145,676 fundraising for Doolittle, was hired by Abramoff's charity to do p.r. work.

"If I'm a donor that wants to get in good with Congressman Doolittle, what better way than to make a campaign contribution that I know 15% of is going to his family's bank account?", asked Wigglesworth. "Is it any wonder he draws corrupt donors like moths to a flame?"

#-#-#
TheRestofUs.org is a nonpartisan campaign watchdog.

The comments of Doolittle's spokesperson Laura Blackann can be found in this January 5, 2005 article in the Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14040515p-14872096c.html