WASHINGTON-As it did in a controversial House primary in Maine last summer, CUNA reported last week it has launched its own independent campaign ads for two House candidates in the Midwest.
In the first, CUNA paid $78,883 to begin broadcasting TV and radio ads on behalf of Lynn Jenkins, the Republican state treasurer and former state representative, running for the second district House seat in Kansas.
On the same day, CUNA spent $17,130 for radio ads promoting Democratic State Rep. Judith Baker, who is running for the state's ninth district House seat.
Both initiatives are so-called independent expenditures that CUNA is barred from coordinating with, or even telling the candidate or CUNA's own state league.
Earlier this year, CUNA's independent expenditure of $135,000 on behalf of Iraq war veteran Adam Cote riled the Democratic primary, which Cote eventually lost.
The CUNA initiative, which sent pro-Cote postcards to thousands of households in the district just before the primary, created controversy because no one-including CUNA's local affiliate, the Maine Credit Union League-knew about it and it was seen as an intrusion by a Washington-based interest group into a local campaign.
CUNA has had success in the past with independent campaign expenditures, the best example of which was the $250,000 it spent on behalf of Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Though Lieberman lost the primary, he came back to win a third term running as an independent, and later introduced the CU Regulatory Improvements Act, CURIA, in the Senate.
