Who's behind the Senn attack ads?

06:04 PM PDT on Wednesday, September 8, 2004

By ROBERT MAK / KING 5 News

SEATTLE - Many people have seen commercials attacking candidate for Attorney General Deborah Senn. Now the man behind them is being asked to reveal exactly who bought the ads.

The group that bought the commercials calls itself the Voter Education Committee. Republican political consultant Bruce Boram said they are people in the business committee but he refuses to be more specific. He has until noon Thursday to tell the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission who's paying for the $1 million ads.

KING Bruce Boram is a Republican political consultant.

But Boram says he doesn't have to say.

“It’s just the way we do and it’s the way the rules work in these types of organizations,” he said. “We’re just going to follow the normal filing.”

Boram claims this is an issue ad that has nothing to do with the candidate.

"The rules are all there, and we're following them as we see them," he said

"And you believe you're advocating for an issue?" asked KING 5.

Boram: "That's correct."

KING 5: "Not against a candidate."

Boram: "It's all about, it's an issue-advocacy message."

KING 5: "Which just happens to come while she running for election."

Boram: "It's an issue-advocacy message."

Deborah Senn has now launched her own commercial responding to the attack ad against her.

“There are Republican fingerprints all over this,” she said.

Ironically, Boram also happens to be the main campaign spokesman and consultant for the Dave Reichert campaign. The former King County Sheriff is a Republican running for Congress. Just last week Reichert walked out of a forum in his race, saying he was disgusted with negative campaigning.

KING The attack ad against Deborah Senn.

He was asked: "If you're against dirty politics, is there any room for Bruce Boram in your campaign?"

"Well, Bruce Boram is a consultant, Bruce Boram has many clients, I'm one of those clients," he replied.

Meanwhile, Boram said about Reichert: "No one would ever dream of doing anything like that in his campaign so I assure you that it will always be run that way."

"But do you feel you've violated that rule with this commercial against Senn?" KING 5 asked

"This is a different client, I have lots of different clients and people that I work with," replied Boram.

Meanwhile, Reichert said: "As far as Bruce Boram goes, he and I, as I said, I'm not making any decisions right now, but he and I are going to have a talk today to see where we go from here."

Reichert said that earlier in his campaign he did fire one of his staff for dirty politics.

On Thursday afternoon the Public Disclosure Commission will meet to decide whether or not to take action against Boram or his committee.