THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 20, 1995 TAG: 9504200484
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
The treasurer of Sen. Jesse Helms' election committee has appealed to the federal government for help in a battle with the former election committee director over control of campaign financial records.
The battle is ostensibly over federal election law. But it is more deeply tied to Helms' acrimonious split with the Congressional Club last year over his allegations that some money raised in his name was siphoned from his campaigns, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.
On one side of the new dispute is Rocky Mount businessman Jack Bailey, named by Helms as treasurer of his re-election committee in August. On the other side is Carter Wrenn, who ran Helms' three previous races and built a fund-raising empire around his name.
Bailey, through Raleigh lawyer Samuel T. Currin, asked the Federal Election Commission to intervene. That came after the two sides failed to settle despite more than a dozen letters and meetings over six months between Currin and lawyer Joe Thomas Knott III, who is working for Wrenn.
Bailey says he needs campaign documents going back at least to 1990, when Helms last ran for office, in order to organize next year's race. Wrenn says he has handed over everything Bailey needs to comply with the law.
``That is a typical Carter Wrenn lie,'' Bailey said. ``He has not given us information about small gifts that were given to Helms when he was in control of receiving funds, and that makes it impossible for us to comply with the FEC. And I have no intention of spending our funds in a court of law.''
The purported dispute is over an arcane point of election law. In Bailey's view, the Helms for Senate Committee is a single entity with continuous existence regardless of who its treasurer is; all records from previous elections, he says, should be in his possession as the current treasurer.
Wrenn, however, says the committee lives and dies with each election cycle. Helms' present panel is separate from the groups that ran his previous elections, he says, and the older documents stay with him because he managed the earlier committees - and still must be prepared to answer government financial inquiries for several years. by CNB