Republican Sen. hopefuls late on financial reports

Imagine the reaction of your professor if you tried to turn in an assignment 24 days late. 

That’s the reaction Republican Senate candidates are receiving after failing to file their financial disclosure statements more than three weeks after the April 4 deadline.

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires that candidates release all statements on incomeand its source as well as information regarding stocks, bonds and property a month before the general election.

State Sen. Marlin Stutzman was the only candidate out of the five to file the report before the deadline and said it was so easy he filled it out “in a Chick-fil-A parking lot.”
Late Wednesday, former Sen. Dan Coats finally filed his statement, revealing more than $800,000 in earnings since the beginning of last year and more than $2.6 million in major assets.

Coats’ spokesman Pete Seat said the campaign didn’t even realize they were past deadline until April 14 and believed the deadline was May 15, the same as when Coats formerly served in Congress.

Coats’ filing comes a day after the Indiana Democratic Party announced it would be sending a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee asking it to require the GOP Senate candidates to file their disclosure forms.

While Indiana Democrats are demanding that all the candidates come “out of the shadows,” they focused their attack solely on Coats.

“Dan Coats has made continued claims to Hoosiers that he would be open and transparent about his lobbying ties, and he has yet to live up to those commitments, Indiana Democratic Party Chair Dan Parker said in a statement.

The Coats camp said the singling out of the former senator shows how fearful Democrats are of losing the Senate seat held by Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who is retiring from Congress after this term.

“It’s obvious they’re nervous about facing Dan Coats in the fall,” Seat said. “It shows in the way they’ve been reacting to news.”

It appears that attempts to focus on Coats’ time spent as a Washington lobbyist, as well as his tardy financial statement, haven’t been enough to sway him from the favorite position in the primary election.

A poll released yesterday by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne shows Coats leading former congressmen John Hostettler by 12 points and Stutzman by 18 points.

“Dan Coats’ message is resonating with Hoosiers,” Seat said. “It’s clear that the message is conservative leadership and Hoosier values.”

With less than a week until the May 4 primary, Stutzman and Coats are the only two of the five candidates to have filed their financial disclosure reports.

Winchester financial adviser Don Bates Jr., Indiana Tea Party founder Richard Behney  and former congressman Hostettler did not return calls for comment on Thursday.