In an acrimonious debate Thursday, Republican congressional candidate Rick O’Donnell charged that the lobbying his Democratic opponent’s wife does in Washington, D.C., would present a conflict of interest.
“So the question is, on the key issues in Congress, who are you going to represent?” O’Donnell asked former state Sen. Ed Perl mutter. “The clients putting money in your pocketbook or the citizens of the 7th Congressional District?”
Perlmutter charged that his opponent had slid in the polls and was going negative to regain his footing in the race to replace Congressman Bob Beauprez, who is running for governor.
“It’s clear when you start picking on my wife, who is a wonderful woman, that you’re getting desperate,” Perlmutter said.
“It’s just not right,” Perlmutter added. “I mean, you can pick on issues. That’s fair game, but don’t be picking on my family.”
Perlmutter is married to Deana Perlmutter, who manages the Denver office of Dutko Worldwide. She has billed clients, including the city of Houston, Sprint and the National Food Processors Association, nearly $4 million since 1998, federal lobbying records show.
Perlmutter said his wife has agreed not to lobby him or the U.S. House of Representatives if he’s elected.
But O’Donnell said those precautions weren’t sufficient because she could still lobby the president or regulatory agencies that Perlmutter might have to oversee as a congressman.
“It has nothing to do with your wife,” O’Donnell continued. “It’s you, sir. We need to know if you’re going to have any conflicts of interests.”
The candidates also clashed over the 250-acre Clean Harbors Deer Trail Facility near Last Chance in Adams County.
O’Donnell said Perlmutter was “demagoguing” the issue by saying he feared it could become a dumping ground for “nuclear waste.”
Perlmutter said O’Donnell has changed his positions, first stating he had no problem with a move by the state to allow low-level radioactive waste at the facility and then saying he didn’t think such waste should be stored there.
“They want to bring in radioactive waste to the Last Chance facility,” Perlmutter said. “And if you look at the definition of radioactivity and nuclear, radioactivity comes from the decay of the nuclei.”
O’Donnell said the material the state wants to store there was harmless.
“No one, including myself, wants to open a nuclear waste dump there, and no one is talking about nuclear waste,” O’Donnell said.
Adams County commissioners have filed lawsuits in Denver and Adams County, now on appeal, seeking to block a move by the state to open the site to low-level radioactive waste.
The candidates parted ways on the Iraq war, with Perlmutter saying the war had made America less safe from terrorists and O’Donnell saying it had made America safer.
Perlmutter said that by spring 2008, he thinks some of the troops in Iraq should be redeployed to other bases in the Middle East.
“We have a tremendous mess,” Perlmutter said. “We’ve had no accountability. We’ve had a rubber-stamp Republican Congress just doing whatever the president and the White House would like.”
O’Donnell said more troops are needed in Iraq to stabilize the situation.
“We are a little bit bogged down in Iraq; I think everyone recognizes that,” O’Donnell said. “The answer isn’t to just arbitrarily pull troops home.”
O’Donnell, though, joined Perl mutter in calling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In the past, O’Donnell has said he thinks the president should have the right to choose who he wants as secretary of defense.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
