By Malia Rulon
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. George Voinovich can't return $85,000 in contributions he received while he was Ohio's governor from a donor who is now in prison, the Federal Election Commission said Thursday.

The commission voted 4-1 to approve a draft ruling that forbids the Ohio Republican from using Senate campaign funds to repay the donations accepted by his gubernatorial campaign before it was disbanded.

Several commissioners said they would have liked to let him use Senate campaign funds to repay the donations, but were required by the nation's new campaign finance law to bar it.

Candidates previously could use federal campaign funds for "any other lawful purpose," but Congress deleted that provision when it approved the new law.

"We were a little surprised by that response," Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn said.

"But it appears that the flexibility that the committee once had has now been removed and therefore the senator's petition was turned down."

Several elected officials have returned contributions from Larry Rogers, co-founder and former president of the defunct PIE Mutual Insurance Co. of Cleveland.

Last year, Rogers agreed to pay restitution of $6.8 million as part of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to charges that included using PIE funds for illegal contributions to 75 politicians from 1990 to 1997 and lying to the Federal Elections Commission and Ohio authorities.

Prosecutors found that Voinovich and other candidates who accepted donations from PIE Mutual Insurance hadn't done anything illegal, but that the contributions were improper.

In July 2002, Voinovich returned $15,450 he received from PIE for his 1998 Senate campaign.

State Auditor Betty Montgomery reimbursed the PIE liquidation fund for the $87,000 she received from Rogers for her 1994 and 1998 campaigns for attorney general.

Ohio's other senator, Mike DeWine, returned $30,500 in June 2002.

The company was the largest medical malpractice insurer in Ohio when it failed in 1998, leaving thousands of doctors uninsured and limiting payments to injured patients.

The company still owes malpractice claims worth $150 million.