Treasurer to stop campaign solicitations of Massachusetts Lottery agents

John McElhenny

Monday, March 13, 2000 | 3:10 a.m.

BOSTON - The state treasurer will no longer ask for campaign donations from Lottery agents whose businesses she oversees, a spokesman said.

The Boston Herald reported Monday that campaign workers for State Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien sent out hundreds of requests for donations to businesses in recent weeks. A Treasury spokesman denied that the requests put unfair pressure on Lottery agents.

First Deputy Treasurer Michael Travaglini said the campaign notices were merely invitations to fund-raising events. A fund-raiser in Brockton on Feb. 24, for example, requested a $20 donation.

"At $20 fund-raisers - I can't imagine waht kind of pressure you're putting on somebody," Travaglini said Monday.

But John Gallucci, who sells Lottery tickets from his Carousel Variety Store in Wakefield, disagreed.

Gallucci said he had no problem receiving political mailings at home, but he was uncomfortable with an invitation to a fund-raiser for O'Brien that arrived at his store on Thursday, along with a request for a $25, $50 or $100 donation.

"If I choose to seek a candidate to endorse, that's one thing, but to be solicited in this manner, it puts a whole cloud over doing business with the Lottery," he said.

The state Republican Party on Monday called upon the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the state agency that oversees campaign fund-raising, to conduct an investigation.

In a statement, party Chairman Brian Cresta, R-Wakefield, called the affair a "scandal" and a "fund-raising shakedown."

A spokesman for the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Denis Kennedy, declined to say if O'Brien's campaign would be investigated.

But Kennedy said state law allows officials to ask for and receive campaign contributions from people they do business with, as long as there's no coercion to donate and no offer to give something in return for the donation.

State Ethics Commission spokeswoman Carol Carson declined to say if the commission would investigate.

Travaglini said "a few hundred" campaign solicitations were sent out by campaign workers to Lottery agents whose businesses appear on a list on the Lottery's Web site. There are about 8,000 Lottery agents in Massachusetts.

Neither O'Brien's campaign nor the Treasurer's Office had received any donations as a result of the letters, but Travaglini said any donations that stemmed from them would be returned.

"It's the act of going to the list that the treasurer decided the appearance is not good, and that's why we stopped it," Travaglini said.

O'Brien has a policy of not accepting campaign contributions from the 120 Treasury employees and 400 Lottery employees, Travaglini said.

But he said if storeowners who are licensed to sell Lottery tickets chose to make campaign donations in the future, O'Brien's campaign would accept them.

"Someone shouldn't be excluded from making a voluntary donation," he said.