Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 19, 1990 TAG: 9003222418
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
A 16-year-old Democrat from Fort Worth, Texas, Schattman was surprised to find a genuine $25 check mailed to her recently from an arm of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
But it wasn't until she got to the 11th paragraph of a three-page letter touting the GOP's new "Candidate Escrow Funding" concept that Schattman realized that by cashing the check she was agreeing to let the party take $12.50 a month out of her bank account.
After a two-month trial at the GOP's expense, Schattman could either cancel participation or continue letting the party automatically transfer $12.50 a month from her bank account to a fund to help Republican candidates.
Trouble is, the high school junior says she doesn't even have a checking account.
"It's the oddest thing I think I've ever received," she said after school Friday. Republican officials also are at a loss to explain how Schattman, who hopes to get her driver's license this week, wound up on a mailing list for prospective members of the Republican Presidential Task Force.
When she saw the check, Schattman said her first reaction was: "That's pretty stupid for them to send me money. I wouldn't do anything for them."
Schattman said she then tried to think of a way of endorsing the check over to a cause like Habitat for Humanity or the Abortion Rights League. But she decided she didn't want to risk having her name show up in the "charter issue" of "Who's Who in the Republican Party."
The fund-raising letter, paid for and authorized by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said recipients who deposit their checks before the expiration date would be included in what promises to become "one of America's most prestigious reference books."
"I want to know if it's legal for them to have done that [send out the checks]. Old ladies, who don't read the entire thing because it hurts their eyes might think, how nice. And they can't read the tiny print on the back of the check," Schattman said.
Buried on the back of the check, in tiny type, is a notice that the $12.50 monthly charge would be going up 10 percent on each one-year anniversary.
Other Democrats also are questioning the Republicans' strategy. Joe Louis Barrow, deputy director of communications for the Democratic National Committee, said a Democratic lawyer in Pennsylvania received a similar letter and apparently has asked the Federal Election Commission for a ruling.
Bob Slagle, Texas Democratic Party chairman, called the fund-raising effort "too deceitful and fraudulent to be funny."
"Leave it to the Republicans to figure out another way to con you," Slagle said.
Since the Feb. 23 letter went out to several thousand people, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has made several changes for its next edition, including adding a toll-free number for recipients confused about the plan, said spokeswoman Wendy DeMocker.
"We do want good will attached to our fund-raising efforts," she said.
DeMocker said the first mailing went to current members of the Republican Presidential Task Force who mail in a monthly $10 contribution, and to prospective members.
She said using electronic fund transfers instead of soliciting individual checks from thousands of contributors was a "more streamlined" way of doing business. But she didn't know how a 16-year-old wound up on the mailing list.
"How she found her way onto our mailing list is," she paused, "interesting. . . . That's pretty unusual."
Slagle complained that some recipients of the check might deposit it without realizing what they were getting into.
"Most people aren't interested in reading three pages, and I'm sure some people are going to be suckered by it," Slagle said.
DeMocker, however, said participants would see on their bank statements that $12.50 was being taken out "and there is a three-page letter."
Slagle, an attorney, also questioned whether the contract printed on the back of the check is enforceable under a Texas law that requires the use of large type for certain contract provisions.
"I'd hate to be a lawyer enforcing that," he said.
by CNB