Ouch: Crossroads Hits Heitkamp On Pay-To-Play Contributions From Motley Rice Law Firm

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 16, 2012
12:08pm

Last year we here at SayAnythingBlog.com broke news of some ethics problems Heitkamp had back when she was the state’s Attorney General. Heitkamp hired a trial lawyer named Jack McConnell to represent North Dakota in the state class action lawsuits against the tobacco companies. McConnell, who has since been appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama, is still raking in millions of dollars per year from his work on that case.

Contemporaneous to Heitkamp appointing McConnell to represent North Dakota, he just happened to shower $71,000 on her 2000 campaign for governor. In that election cycle, McConnell (who is from Rhode Island) was also one of the largest contributors to the state Democrat party.

In the current election cycle, Heitkamp continues to benefit from her relationship with McConnell. According to OpenSecrets.org, McConnell’s law firm Motley Rice is the largest contributor to Heitkamp’s campaign so far:

This issue also came up during McConnell’s confirmation hearings in the Senate after Obama nominated him for the federal bench.

Now Crossroads GPS is bringing the issue up in a new ad:

Heitkamp, of course, claims these accusations are false. She’s even scheduled a press conference for today to respond at which she’ll no doubt play the victim card and complain about Karl Rove “attacking” her. But Heitkamp’s cozy and on-going relationship with McConnell and his law firm after she gave him a very lucrative appointment is a pertinent fact about her track record.

And not a very flattering one at that.