A lawyer hired by Sen. Lisa Murkowski‘s re-election committee today sent a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign of Sen. Mark Begich. She is demanding that he quit using her name and image in his political ads.
Begich is currently running a TV spot called “Great Team” that says they vote alike 80% of the time, a statistic that holds true for 2014 so far. Murkowski says she doesn’t support Begich’s re-election because she wants a Republican to win.
“The concern that I had was two-fold: A misrepresentation from Sen. Begich’s campaign that somehow I had endorsed his re-election efforts,” Murkowski said in an interview with KHNS in Haines today, “and the use by the campaign of an official photo taken in my office without my permission.”
The letter accuses the Begich campaign of misusing Senate resources because of that photo, which shows the two senators in Murkowski’s Senate office. A spokesman for the Begich camp, though, says it wasn’t an official photo. The campaign says it purchased the 2008 picture from the Associated Press. Sen. Begich said today the ad is accurate and he will continue to air accurate ads.
See a copy of Murkowski’s letter here: 2014-08-07 Ltr to Begich Campaign
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
