07/18/03

Columbus - Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro has solicited up to a dozen corporations for contributions to an organization whose members are responsible for enforcing business regulations in their states.

Petro, the state's top attorney since January, said yesterday that he has contacted 10 to 12 organizations on behalf of the Republican Attorneys General Association, known as RAGA.

Petro declined to identify the corporations.

But he said he has been careful to solicit only those businesses that have no legal entanglements in Ohio.

He declined to identify the corporations because he does not know if they contributed to RAGA.

The Washington-based organization, with a primary mission of electing more Republicans to states' top legal posts, does not identify its corporate donors. A story in yesterday's Washington Post disclosed that between 1999 and 2001, state attorneys general in RAGA solicited hundreds of the nation's largest tobacco, pharmaceutical, energy, banking, insurance and media concerns, many which are the subject of state government regulations or product-liability lawsuits.

The organization had collected $235,000 from 21 firms as of February 2000 and had received promises of more than $188,000 from 24 other companies.

RAGA was also soliciting money from an additional 114 other organizations, according to the organization's internal documents.

In return, donors were promised access to the organization to discuss public policy and a chance to schmooze with their state's attorney general.

Petro's predecessor, current Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery, dropped out of RAGA several months after joining the group in late 1999. Montgomery attended one donor meeting in October 1999 at Kiawah Island Resort, S.C. She was identified as a solicitor and given an assigned list of 10 organizations to contact, but she said she made no solicitation calls.

"I was not comfortable with being asked to solicit money," Montgomery said yesterday. "I just wasn't comfortable with some of the people we were going to be soliciting or comfortable with the whole theory."

Montgomery and Petro both have announced they intend to run for governor in 2006.

Petro expressed belief that RAGA is valuable, in part because more Republicans are now attorneys general, up from 12 to 20 since 1999. Furthermore, the corporate donations cannot be used to fund political campaigns in Ohio, Petro said, because state law prohibits corporate campaign contributions.

On the other hand, Petro has received $2,500 from a non-corporate account maintained by RAGA, which also provides Petro with a potential list of organizations to contact for donations. "I've had discussions or made a few phone calls to companies that care a great deal about policy making," Petro said. "I have not solicited where there is a conflict or appearance of impropriety."

Officials from public watchdog groups, however, are troubled by Petro's involvement.

"The only reason to solicit contributions in this way is to avoid disclosure requirements," said Catherine Turcer, campaign finance director for Ohio Citizen Action. "It's hard to figure out what is going on, and that is the whole purpose of the organization."

The information about RAGA comes from more than 200 pages of internal documents released during an acrimonious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday in Washington on the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the federal appeals court. Pryor is RAGA's treasurer and a co-founder of the group along with the Republican National Committee.

Plain Dealer Washington Bureau Reporter Tom Diemer contributed to this story.

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tcbrown@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272