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MEMPHIS – Ask Representative Marsha Blackburn to talk about finances and a strong reaction can follow.
When she worked as a state commissioner for film and music in Tennessee in 1995, another government official questioned her about her travel expenses during a trip there. California. Mrs. Blackburn, who is now the Republican candidate for a seat in the Tennessee Senate, responded by burning her receipts and sending the charred remnants a note mentioning "a copy of LA's expense report as requested".
But questions about his consumption habits arose. As a member of Congress, she has donated more than $ 370,000 from her campaign funds to her daughter and son-in-law or the companies they control. His campaigns have received 54 requests for additional information from the Federal Electoral Commission since 2002, and during an internal audit conducted in 2008, the campaign admitted receiving nearly $ 400,000 in contributions and undeclared expenses.
A staunch supporter of President Trump in a state that he won by 26 percentage points, Blackburn finds herself in an extremely competitive race for the vacancy left by Bob Corker, giving Democrats a rare chance to claim a seat. in the Senate. One of the reasons is that Blackburn's Democratic opponent, Phil Bredesen, is a well-known former governor who helped attract an NFL franchise to Nashville while he was mayor of the city. He then ran the 95 counties of the state when he was re-elected governor in 2006.
Republicans with a low 51-49 age advantage in the Senate, the race is deemed so critical that Republicans have beefed up Blackburn's campaign. On Monday night, Mr. Trump attended a fundraiser and rally for her, and even closer to her orbit saying, "Voting for Marsha, it's really voting for me and everything we defend. "
In this sense, the Tennessee race reflects the political and ideological struggles that take place across the country. Ms. Blackburn, 66, is a familiar face on Fox News and identifies himself as a "Tennessee card-keeper". By contrast, Bredesen, 74, is a centrist democrat who praises skills as a business-friendly consensus driver.
Mr. Bredesen had his own financial misstep. Governor of Tennessee, a longtime relauncher of the solar industry, he created a solar company with two of his associates during his last year in office, garnering the press's attention and provoking criticism. After leaving his post, the company benefited from the tax breaks implemented by the Bredesen administration.
The company, Silicon Ranch, is developing solar farms. Mr. Bredesen, who reserved the company's domain name while he was still in office, is the chairman. His multi-million dollar stake in the company was strengthened earlier this year when Royal Dutch Shell acquired nearly 44% of the company.
Both campaigns were asked about their various financial problems and their responses reflected their divergent approaches. Mr. Bredesen, a veteran of the political world known as bitten politics, has prepared piles of paper detailing his history with Silicon Ranch.
"Of course, if I thought about talking to a journalist eight years later, I would have at least thought about how I was doing it," he said at a news conference. interview at his campaign headquarters in Nashville, pointing out that he had played a passive role in the company.
"It was certainly a good investment for me, but I wanted to help some people who wanted to start a business," he said, referring to his former colleagues. Mr. Bredesen stated that there was no legal or ethical prohibition in this state for such an investment, although the controversy has prompted him to modify a disclosure form in the last few months.
Mrs. Blackburn had not been previously run throughout the state and faced limited opposition over the years in her bright red district of Congress. Her office declined an interview request, did not share her calendar of campaign events, and did not suggest surrogates to discuss her case.
Answering questions about her spending practices, her campaign said in a statement that Blackburn had described the public servant as "very rude and very arrogant" who had questioned his expenses. His associates also said that "their family and friends had suspended their careers". to carry out her first campaign in Congress and "she has not paid any member of her family for more than ten years".
Regarding his problems with the United States, his campaign said, "We have engaged a new compliance team, including a new treasurer, and taken other corrective actions.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have in the past been paid to companies related to his daughter and son-in-law – the main one of them indicating the address of their home. The same family businesses also received an additional $ 25,000 from a political action committee that supports Ms. Blackburn. Under the federal electoral law, campaigns and political action committees are not allowed to coordinate their activities.
Blackburn's son-in-law, Paul J. Ketchel III, registered as a lobbyist in 2004 during his first term in Congress, charging fees to some Tennessee clients who contributed to his mother-in-law. He earned more than $ 300,000 from Dialogic Communications, a federal contractor who also employed Mrs. Blackburn's son, Chad.
Mrs. Blackburn's campaign stated that Mr. Ketchel "was not a registered lobbyist for 10 years".
In recent years, Mr. Ketchel co-founded a health care company called MDSave, which lobbied the House, according to a review of public records. The campaign said his company did not put pressure on Ms. Blackburn, who sits on a subcommittee on health care.
For both candidates, however, the financial problems remained largely in the background, with the urgent national battle for congressional control having defined the race. Mrs. Blackburn's most common to refrain would voting for Mr. Bredesen amount to a vote to hand over the Senate to Chuck Schumer.
Sensitive to this attack, Mr. Bredesen opened a debate with Mrs. Blackburn last week stating, "When I get elected and I'm in Washington, I will not vote for Chuck Schumer."
"Blackburn wants to make it a national contest entirely dedicated to Trump, and Bredesen wants to do the same for local issues," said John G. Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt. "Blackburn is leading the most negative campaign overall, trying to raise doubts about Bredesen, much more than Bredesen trying to cast doubt on her," he added.
"He wants to present himself as a problem solver, and he has an advantage in doing so, because that's what he did as a governor."
The polls show that the race is a virtual race, with a slight advantage for Mr. Bredesen.
Ms. Blackburn was part of a group of lawmakers who offered Mr. Trump a Nobel Peace Prize for his intervention on the Korean Peninsula and generally showed him unfailing loyalty. Asked in last week's debate about her disagreement with the president, she mentioned tariffs and expenses. "Our debt and deficit, our annual deficit, are too high for me," she said.
She also ignored climate change and has already made headlines refuting allegations that Planned Parenthood has sold parts of a baby's body, igniting the national abortion debate and pushing Twitter to to accuse him briefly of having violated his instructions.
Legislatively, she is perhaps best known for co-sponsoring the law to guarantee patient access and the effectiveness of the fight against drugs, a law that impedes the ability of the Drug Enforcement Administration to Take it to large drug distribution companies, according to a survey of opioid epidemic by the Washington Post and 60 Minutes. The pharmaceutical industry, which supported the bill, was one of Blackburn's biggest supporters.
Asked about the bill, Ms. Blackburn, in her statement, said: "I recently introduced bipartisan bills to increase criminal and penal sanctions for bad actors" and she "would continue to work for a systemic solution "to the opioid crisis.
The two candidates contested the appointment of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Ms. Blackburn called the investigation into the allegations of assault on Kavanaugh J. "murder of character". Mr. Bredesen blamed Ms. Blackburn and the senators of all parties for going to court before Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser were heard.
In some ways, Mr. Bredesen fits better with the profile of a Republican candidate. He was a wealthy entrepreneur at the time of his election as mayor of Nashville in 1991, after creating and selling a health maintenance organization called HealthAmerica, Inc. Mr. Bredesen, who had not received a salary in as a governor, continues to show a business mind prudent view of the regulations. Mr. Corker, often a Republican opponent of President Trump, called Mr. Bredesen as a friend and refused to campaign against him.
Mr Bredesen likes to lower the political tone by declaring at a political forum in Memphis: "I'm not running against the president."
"My role as a senator is not to be in constant opposition with him on all counts, but to see what is best for Tennessee," he said.
In an interview given to his campaign headquarters the day after the forum, he said that he was returning to politics after more than seven years, believing that he was giving his party the best chance of winning.
"I do not think that a generic, well-qualified democrat will win this seat," he said. "I was somehow in a unique position of being a governor, having a base, etc., and I guess I had the feeling that I just had to feel obligated to take action. "
As governor, he stuck to the center. Faced with the exorbitant costs of a prototype of Obamacare called TennCare, he made steep cuts.
He also objected to the income tax and reduced fees of lawyers, said Victor Ashe, a Republican Mayor of Knoxville for 16 years, adding that "the joke was that he was the best Republican governor Tennessee has ever known. "
Stephanie Saul contributed to the New York report.
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