Lonegan, Booker in Tax Bout; New Jersey Senate Candidates Spar Over Earnings
METUCHEN, N.J.--Republican Steve Lonegan and his Democratic opponent for an open U.S. Senate seat, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, took in a similar amount of household income last year, but the sources of their money and the taxes they paid contrasted sharply, documents made available Monday showed.</br></br>The two are running in a special Oct. 16 election to fill the Senate seat held by Frank Lautenberg, who died in June. Mr. Lonegan has made Mr. Booker's financial transparency and earnings a campaign issue, and the Newark Democrat released 15 years of his returns Friday in response. Mr. Lonegan's campaign allowed reporters to view three years of his tax returns Monday.</br></br>Mr. Booker's total income was $509,719 last year, and Mr. Lonegan and his wife's was $515,280, the documents showed.</br></br>Mr. Booker, a nationally known Democrat, has supplemented his mayoral salary with hundreds of thousands of dollars from speaking fees across the country. He made $347,594 in speaking fees last year and brought in a total of more than $1.3 million since 1998.</br></br>Mr. Lonegan's tax returns depicted a modest investor who has swung between profits and losses on a handful of rental properties and stock holdings.