Lautenberg hits Andrews on earmarks to wife's school

Frank Lautenberg continued to assail Rob Andrews today on an earmark directed to his wife’s employer, demanding that he release a “signed certification to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee stating that neither he nor his spouse received any financial interest in the earmarked project.”

At issue is over $2 million in federal grants received by Rutgers University Law School in Camden, where Camille Andrews worked as associate dean of admissions.

The issue was first raised by Dale Glading, one of the Republican congressional candidates in the first congressional district, where Camille Andrews is running in her husband’s stead.

A press release from the Lautenberg campaign charges that the law school never formally requested the funds, although Rutgers-Camden did not get all the money they requested.

“The money, which was never requested by the university, went to fund programs at the law school which were overseen in part by Camille Andrews, as well as a charter school where Mrs. Andrews served as a trustee,” said the release.

The press release implied that the earmark may have violated House ethics rules because Camille Andrews, who’s currently on leave from her job at Rutgers, was salaried.

The Andrews campaign has already circulated a letter form ethics committee members clearing the earmark.

“Your spouse’s compensation will not be affected by any of these three earmarks, nor will she enjoy any other financial gain or other benefit from the earmarks,” it read.

Andrews Campaign Chairman Michael Murphy said that Andrews has been transparent with his earmarks, and Lautenberg should use the same spirit of fairness to release all of his tax returns in detail.

“The other thing I would suggest to the Lautenberg campaign is I wonder if this is sort of an environmental effort. Maybe this is Frank being green, because normally NJ only recycles newspaper, not news stories,” said Murphy.