Alex Alben, Democratic candidate for the 8th Congressional District, finds himself facing a heap of Enron-esque questions about how he and his wife got all that tech money that is funding his campaign.
The Times' Warren Cornwall reports:
"Congressional candidate Alex Alben's wife and his campaign treasurer made millions as executives of Bellevue-based InfoSpace selling the company's stock during its meteoric rise and fall earlier this decade.
A shareholder lawsuit pending in state court accuses them and other former InfoSpace executives of selling shares without telling shareholders that much of the company's revenue was illusory."
To be fair, Alben himself is not named in the lawsuit. However, Ellen Alben and campaign treasurer Tammy Halstead face serious accusations from shareholders.
Cornwall writes: "Ellen Alben was InfoSpace's senior vice president of legal and business affairs until late 2000, and Tammy Halstead, Alben's campaign treasurer, was InfoSpace's chief financial officer before stepping down in 2003."
"Ellen Alben sold $14 million worth of InfoSpace shares in 2000 - the year the company stock price collapsed from $277 to less than $9 per share during the dot-com crash."
Further, "Alben and Halstead are accused of selling stock during a period in late 2000, when accounting rules allowed company executives to sell only a fraction of their holdings."
Ellen Alben responds to the lawsuit by saying: "Number one, I'm not the candidate. Number two, I never did anything wrong. Anyone can bring a lawsuit."
Alben faces two opponents - Dave Ross and Heidi Behrens-Benedict - in the Sept. 14 primary for the 8th District seat.
Locke boosts Gregoire
After a week of getting beat up over her stint as president of a whites-only sorority in the 1960s, Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire got a welcome Democratic primary endorsement from Gov. Gary Locke. Ron Sims, Gregoire's Democratic rival, dismissed the endorsement as "no surprise."
And over in the U.S. Senate race, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray gets support from some former Coast Guard admirals who say Republican George Nethercutt's radio ads claiming she tried to cut the Coast Guard are totally false.
Nethercutt claims Murray tried to cut the Coast Guard budget by $121 million in 2002. In fact, Murray's Coast Guard budgets proposals were $179 million more than the president or U.S. House had proposed.
And finally, Times columnist Danny Westneat says the way our U.S. Senate candidates equate more money with being "better" on homeland security is just plain silly.
"Nethercutt says Murray should spend more securing our ports. Murray says Nethercutt should spend more on local anti-terrorism grants. A vote by either against any security spending is jumped upon as a sign of weakness."
"This is the tenor of the national debate, too. You're either for homeland security or you're for the terrorists."
Westneat notes that piles of homeland security money is going to stuff like waterproof digital cameras for the Renton police department.
If we can't stop the terrorists, at least we can snap some photos.
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