Jim Slattery, a candidate in the Kansas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, responded to criticism by his primary opponent, Lee Jones, and Republican incumbent Pat Roberts, by releasing a partial list of his lobbying activities last week.

Campaign watchdog organizations were not impressed, however.

Steve Carpinelli, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity, a group normally critical of Republicans, said the information released by the Slattery campaign was vague and contained the same information available to the public through the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records.

Slattery, a former representative soundly defeated in a gubernatorial run in 1994 by Bill Graves, has returned to Kansas, according to an AP report, "after spending more than a decade in Washington making millions of dollars at one of the nation's most prestigious law firms."

As a lobbyist and partner at influential Wiley Rein, Slattery would have earned at least $4.4 million a year representing both Fortune 500 corporations and smaller clients, including gaming interests.

Other public-interest groups have also been critical of Slattery's firm.

According to The Center for Media and Democracy, during the time Slattery was at Wiley Rein, the firm "opposed FCC actions and Congressional legislation sanctioning TV and radio stations for broadcasting 'indecent' content" and defended the practice of allowing news organizations to publish or broadcast "fake news" provided by corporations and other organizations without disclosing to viewers where the "news" had originated.

Although Slattery often tells groups he's proud to have represented his firm's clients, his Democratic primary opponent, Lee Jones, an Overland Park railway worker and union organizer, is critical of his opponent's activities in Washington.

Jones has been unsuccessful in gaining the kind of coverage that has attracted the state's ad-hungry newspapers and broadcasters to Slattery's well-financed effort.

However, in a campaign statement on his website, Jones said Slattery's "lobbying firm was also slapped with a multi-million dollar fine last year for withholding policy information from policyholders affected by the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The firm has also courted controversy by seeking to limit insurance coverage for Hurricane Katrina victims by arguing that the damage caused was flood damage rather than hurricane damage and therefore claims were not legitimate."

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have made the influence of lobbyists and political action committees a major issue in their campaigns. On Friday, the Obama campaign returned approximately $100,000 received from lobbyists and PACs. The McCain campaign had not accepted contributions from those sources.

Slattery's campaign announced last week that two moderate Republicans, Nelson and Judy Krueger, had joined the campaign's steering committee. Judy Krueger had been a campaign manager for Graves and Nelson Krueger had worked as a staffer for Sen. Bob Dole.

Dole, along with former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and other Kansas Republican heavyweights, however, are backing Roberts' re-election bid.

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