Super PAC Launched By Lugar's Son May Have Violated Election Laws

The American Spectator is raising questions about a newly-formed Super PAC intended to help the re-election of Sen. Richard Lugar. Indiana Values Super PAC has launched an attack against the Club for Growth Super PAC that is supporting Lugar's Republican primary opponent, Richard Mourdock. According to the American Spectator, the PAC is run by one of Lugar's lobbyist sons, David, which raises questions of unlawful collusion between Lugar and his son.

In response, a pro-Lugar Super PAC run by Lugar’s son David launched its own attack ad. However, its target isn’t Mourdock. Instead, it's focused on the Club for Growth’s president, Chris Chocola, who is from Indiana and who hasn’t been in Congress since 2006 when he was defeated by Rep. Joe Donnelly, who will be the Democrat candidate for Lugar’s Senate seat.

A quick search of Lugar’s Indiana Values Super PAC, Inc. shows its treasurer is Robert Klingenstein, a former staffer Lugar who is registered at the address of David Lugar’s lobbying firm: The Lugar Group, LLC. At 555 12th St. NW #770, Washington, D.C.

Is it possible for a father and son to avoid coordination? How are parents and children supposed to avoid discussing such matters?

The American Spectator also notes that PAC run by Lugar's son waited more than the required 10-day period to register with the FEC after it had raised more than $1,000. The PAC commissioned a poll on December 13, 2011 and received a contribution of $10,000 from Robert Kabel on December 21, 2011, but it failed to file with the FEC until January 5, 2012.

Lugar has already been forced to re-register to vote at the family's farm in Marion County after the Marion Co. Election Board determined that he had been illegally registered and casting votes from a home he sold in 1977. An ethics complaint filed last week takes him to task for illegally billing taxpayers for return trips to Indiana while the Senate was not in session. Lugar on Friday repaid the government over $14,000 to repay an amount he believes covers all of the illegally billed expenses during his more than 35-year career in the Senate. In the 1990s, former Minnesota Sen. David Durenberger was censured by the Senate and prosecuted for converting Senate funds to personal use for essentially doing the same thing.