Photograph by Darron Cummings/Pool via AP Images
Sen. Richard Lugar, left, and Richard Mourdock, center, during a debate on April 11, 2012, in Indianapolis.
The Indiana Republican lawyer whose legal challenges of campaign finance regulations helped spawn so-called super-PACs is using his own to try to oust Republican Senator Richard Lugar.
James Bopp Jr. is the custodian of record for USA Super PAC, which reported spending $97,462 yesterday on mail pieces to aid Richard Mourdock, the state Treasurer who may unseat Lugar in a primary election next Tuesday. The disclosure was made in a filing to the Federal Election Commission.
USA Super PAC filed its organizing papers with the FEC last month and hasn’t yet disclosed its sources of funding. Bopp didn’t return telephone and e-mail messages left after normal business hours yesterday.
Bopp, who’s one of Indiana’s representatives on the Republican National Committee, is well-known in campaign finance circles for repeatedly challenging campaign finance regulations. He introduced the case which resulted in a relaxation of restrictions on political spending by corporations and labor unions. (Here’s a profile of Bopp my colleague Jonathan D. Salant wrote last September.)
Several Super-PACs are active in the Indiana Senate Republican primary. A poll released today put Mourdock ahead of Lugar by 10 percentage points.
