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Senator Rick Santorum didn't hesitate to accept a private jet from Wal-Mart to take him to Florida in luxury recently to raise tainted campaign cash while grandstanding during the final days
of the Schiavo case, but still failed to follow the law and pay for his own ride.
Santorum's most recent Federal election filing shows no sign of any reimbursement to Wal-Mart for the use of their jet. According to Federal election law, Santorum was required
to reimburse the big-money special interest company for the equivalent of a full first class fare. Failure to do so
is a violation of Federal law.
"Rick Santorum acted like a hypocrite and had the nerve to actually use it as a springboard for fundraising
in Florida," said Rep. T.J. Rooney, Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. "By refusing to return the money, Santorum
clearly failed a significant character test. Now, by refusing to even pay for his fancy plane ride, failing this character
test also happened to be a violation of Federal law."
Days before the fundraiser, Santorum canceled a Social Security town hall meeting in Tampa "out of respect"
for the Schiavo family, but Santorum had no problem going to Tampa anyway, wining and dining big money political donors just
hours after visiting Terry Schiavo's family. Nonetheless, Santorum still traveled to Tampa on Wal-Mart's corporate jet
under the auspices of pitching President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security.
"The citizens of Pennsylvania deserve to know whether or not Rick Santorum has established a track record
of playing fast and loose with the rules," Rooney followed. "It's time for him to come clean with Pennsylvania, return
the Schiavo money, pay for the jet, and tell us how many other unreported perks he has happily accepted over the years."
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