Nixon to Return Donations: Attorney General Seeks to Avoid the Appearance of Conflict of Interest, His Spokesman Says.

By Kit Wagar, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Jun. 9–Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon will return $19,100 in campaign donations he received indirectly from Ameren Corp. while threatening legal action over the collapse of the company’s Taum Sauk reservoir.

Nixon’s campaign announced his action a day after Natural Resources director Doyle Childers called for Nixon to step aside from the case because the donations created a conflict of interest.

But returning the money wasn’t enough for Childers, who said he had lost confidence in Nixon’s ability to protect the state’s interests.

“I just don’t trust him,” Childers said. “I think it’s fine for him to give the money back, but my guess is that it means it will be better-hidden next time.”

Craig Hosmer, a former state representative from Springfield who is Nixon’s campaign treasurer, said Childers was merely acting as a mouthpiece for Gov. Matt Blunt, whom Nixon plans to challenge in 2008.

Hosmer said that the contributions were legal and that nothing about them was inappropriate. But Nixon was returning the money to the committees that contributed it to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.

“By returning these contributions, Jay is trying to say that in 20 years in office, by all accounts, he has a straight record and he wants to make sure that record is not besmirched,” Hosmer said.

The controversy stems from four contributions of $5,000 each that Ameren Corp. made from January through March to four little-used Democratic political committees in the St. Louis area. Ameren is Missouri’s largest power company.

On March 31, three of those committees — the 77th State Representative District Democratic Committee, the 73rd District Democratic Legislative Committee and the 24th Senatorial Democratic Committee — each donated $4,800 to Nixon. The fourth — the Democratic Central Committee of Lincoln County — donated $4,700 to Nixon.

An Ameren spokeswoman and committee officials have said no one from the company directed the committees to donate the money to Nixon.

At the time the donations were made, Nixon’s office was negotiating with Ameren over damages caused by collapse of the Taum Sauk reservoir. The reservoir collapse devastated the Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park and injured the park superintendent and his family.

Federal investigators said in a recent report that Ameren knew of critical problems at Taum Sauk and delayed repairs that could have prevented the collapse. Nixon was assigned as special prosecutor in the case and is the only authority who could press criminal charges against Ameren or file a lawsuit on behalf of the state.

In April, Nixon said a lawsuit or criminal charges against Ameren were imminent. More recently, Nixon said he had pulled back from litigation and was in negotiations with the company.

—–

Copyright (c) 2006, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:AEE,