DENVER—Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s role in the Colorado Senate race has grown after Democratic candidate Mark Udall’s campaign said he received $1,500 in contributions from firms that employed Abramoff.
The campaign said Wednesday that Udall, a congressman since 1999, had received campaign contributions of $500 in 2000 and $1,000 in 2002 from separate companies Abramoff worked for.
Abramoff is serving a federal prison term after pleading guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion in connection with his lobbying and a business deal.
He became an issue in the Colorado campaign after revelations that one of his companies arranged some of the logistics for a trip taken by Bob Schaffer, Udall’s probable Republican opponent in the Senate race, to the Northern Marianas Islands in 1999 when Schaffer was a congressman.
Abramoff had been hired by the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate, to lobby against legislation in Congress that would have cracked down on alleged abuses in the islands’ garment industry.
Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, has said Schaffer never met with Abramoff.
Wadhams said Wednesday that in 2000, Udall had voted against gambling legislation that Abramoff was angling to defeat. House records show Schaffer voted the same way as Udall.
“There’s only one candidate in the Colorado Senate race that has received money from Jack Abramoff, and that’s liberal Democrat Mark Udall,” Wadhams told The Denver Post in Thursday’s editions.
The Udall campaign said the congressman plans to donate the same amount of money he got from Abramoff’s firms to a group that assists victims of human trafficking on the Northern Marianas.
A Udall spokeswoman denied any connection between the contributions and Udall’s vote.
“Bob Schaffer took an Abramoff-sponsored trip and turned a blind eye to forced abortions and human trafficking of guest workers, while Mark Udall was co-sponsoring three pieces of legislation to fix problems in the Marianas,” Udall spokeswoman Taylor West told the Rocky Mountain News.
