ELECTION/GOP/SENATE/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Ask Representative Marsha Blackburn about finances and a strong response can follow. When she worked as the state film and music commissioner in Tennessee in 1995, another government official questioned her travel expenses on a trip to California. Ms. Blackburn, who is now the Republican candidate for an open Senate seat in Tennessee, responded by burning her receipts and sending the charred remains with a note that said ‘copy of LA expense report as requested.’ But questions about her spending practices have lingered. In her years as a congresswoman, she has paid out more than $370,000 from her campaign funds to her daughter and son-in-law or firms they control. Her campaigns have received 54 requests for additional information from the Federal Election Commission since 2002, and in a 2008 internal audit the campaign admitted receiving nearly $400,000 in unreported contributions and expenditures. A staunch supporter of President Trump in a state he carried by 26 percentage points, Ms. Blackburn finds herself in a surprisingly competitive race for the seat being vacated by Bob Corker, presenting Democrats with a rare chance to claim a red state Senate seat. One reason is that Ms. Blackburn’s Democratic opponent, Phil Bredesen, is a well known former governor who helped lure an NFL franchise to Nashville when he was the city’s mayor and carried all of the state’s 95 counties when he was re-elected as governor in 2006.”
–Danny Hakim, “In Tennessee Senate Race, Financial Missteps Linger in the Background,” The New York Times online, October 3, 2018