From the Daily News-Miner:
Dan LaSota, a former Fairbanks North Star Borough assemblyman, filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Lisa Murkowski last week after a Murkowski campaign phone worker allegedly mentioned an e-mail LaSota sent to the senator's legislative office earlier this year.
A Murkowski spokesman said the campaign was investigating what happened but, in any case, there is no widespread sharing of information between the taxpayer-funded office and the campaign.
LaSota said the Murkowski worker called him in Fairbanks from an Anchorage campaign number and said she understood he was a Murkowski supporter. LaSota, who actively supports former Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles, asked the woman why she would say that.
The caller said she knew he had sent an e-mail to the senator's office thanking her for a vote, LaSota said.
LaSota said he sent that e-mail in May after Murkowski broke Republican ranks and voted to block the Bush administration's proposed overtime rules. The message went to her Senate offices, and mentioned nothing about the campaign, he said.
Senate ethics rules allow offices to share messages with campaign organizations only if the messages mention campaign matters.
"I was a little bit dismayed," LaSota said of the campaign worker's disclosure. "I said I wasn't aware that her congressional office was sharing information with the political office."
The woman wished him a good day and hung up, he said.
LaSota, who runs his own small computer consulting firm, said he also wondered about how the sharing was conducted.
"I'm always curious about what kind of databases people have on you," he said.
"It could be something systematic like that. It could be just an e-mail from one staffer to another. That's what I hope the Senate Ethics Committee resolves."
Elliott Bundy, Murkowski's spokesman, said there is no sharing of databases between Murkowski's office and her campaign.
"No, there's not, and I'm fairly certain it would be unlawful," Bundy said.
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at 8:06 AM PDT
