Santorum Donors Give to Green Party in an Attempt to Foil Dem Opponent Bob Casey

When Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) encouraged everyone in state politics to help the Green Party earn a spot on the November ballot, at least one group answered the call: Santorum donors.

Fourteen Santorum supporters gave $40,000 to fund a petition drive that has allowed Carl Romanelli to collect about 100,000 voter signatures to qualify for the Senate race. That's 33,000 more signatures than required, and double what independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader gathered here in 2004.

But Romanelli and the Green Party of Luzerne County, which collected the money, might have violated federal election law in the process.

In his latest campaign-finance reports, Romanelli listed $66,000 as an in-kind contribution from the Green Party. Such donations cannot exceed $5,000, said Ian Stirton, a Federal Election Commission spokesman, who spoke generally about election law and not about this specific case.

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Romanelli made no excuses for Santorum's donor support, but denied coordination.

"Both Republicans and Democrats have this notion that, if Greens are in the race, Democrats lose votes," said Romanelli, a railroad-industry consultant from the Wilkes-Barre area. "If that was going to motivate someone to contribute, I am fine with that."

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