Rochester, N.Y. -- A campaign attack ad taking aim at Republican Maggie Brooks' record as Monroe County Executive is being called "inaccurate" and "overstated" by the Fair Election Practices Committee (FEPC).
The independent group met Tuesday afternoon to review a complaint lodged by the Brooks Campaign.
The ad in question began airing last week and in it Democrat Louise Slaughter's Campaign presents a long list of so-called scandals and assigns a dollar amount to each. The ad concludes that Brooks' scandals have cost Monroe County taxpayers more than $423 million.
The FEPC concluded that the ad violate's Slaughter's pledge to "conduct (her) campaign accurately and honestly."
A Slaughter spokesman fired back with the following statement moments after the ruling was issued:
"We are disappointed that the FEPC sided with Maggie Brooks' assertion that only tens of millions of dollars should be cited as the cost of her corruption. We continue to stand by our claim that when a group of insiders obtains a contract through a corrupt process, the entire contract is corrupt. Whether you estimate the cost of Brooks' corruption in the tens of millions of dollars or the hundreds of millions of dollars, the fact remains that taxpayers are footing the bill for her scandals, while Brooks still refuses to take responsibility."
Brooks spoke to 13WHAM News before the hearing commenced.
"I think this ad shows that Louise Slaughter has been running a very unfair and dishonest campaign. The majority of the content of the ad is false," Brooks said. "It's false, it's dishonest and I think voters in this community deserve something better than that."
In a statement released following the ruling, Brooks stated:
“In light of today’s ruling, I am officially calling on Mrs. Slaughter to pull her baseless and desperate attack from the airwaves. Failing to do so would only highlight a blatant lack of respect for local voters and run contrary to the high standards we both agreed to by signing the Fair Election Pledge.”
