FORT WAYNE – Democratic Party officials contend Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is putting his hotel expenses on the public’s tab when he visits his home state.

Lugar’s re-election campaign says the claim is partly true.

“If it’s official business, that’s common practice” for federal lawmakers, David Willkie, political director for Lugar’s campaign, said Thursday.

But if Lugar, who has a farm but not a home in Indianapolis, is in the state to campaign or for personal reasons, his expenses do not come out of his office budget, Willkie said.

“This is all in keeping with Senate rules,” Willkie said.

For example, he said, taxpayers paid for Lugar to stay in a Holiday Inn Express last year when he gave a commencement speech at Vincennes University. After the speech, Lugar drove to a Republican Lincoln Day dinner in Clay County, stopping at a McDonald’s on the way and using campaign funds for the trip.

“The destination dictates who is paying for it,” Willkie said.

The Indiana Democratic Party produced documents indicating Lugar spent $50,000 in taxpayer money on 325 visits to Indiana from 1990 through 2011, Fox News reported Wednesday.

“We just don’t know what those expenses are” because they are not itemized, Ben Ray, press secretary for the state Democrats, told The Journal Gazette on Thursday. “Our suspicion is that they are heavily hotels.”

Democrats “are insinuating that he’s doing something sneaky, No. 1, and that he’s violating rules, that he’s dipping into the till,” Willkie said. “And that’s a pretty heavy charge against Dick Lugar, the Boy Scout of Boy Scouts.”

Willkie said Lugar has returned $5.4 million in unspent money from his office budget to the U.S. Treasury since he first took office in 1977.

Lugar lives in McLean, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. A year ago, conservative bloggers wondered why he was allowed to vote in the precinct where he lived when he was Indianapolis mayor in the 1960s and 1970s. Lugar’s camp pointed to a 1982 opinion by Indiana’s attorney general that found congressmen, for voting purposes, can claim their most recent Indiana residence even if they no longer live there.

In the past week, questions about where Lugar lives have been revived by Fox News, CNN, Democratic officials and Republican Charlie White, who lost his post as Indiana secretary of state after being convicted of voter fraud.

“This is about being in touch or out of touch,” Ray said. “Sen. Lugar hasn’t lived in Indiana since Jimmy Carter was president.”

Why didn’t Democrats make an issue of Lugar’s residency and hotel use earlier in his 35-year Senate career?

“This is the first time in a long time that Sen. Lugar has had a tough race, and tough races lead to thorough examinations of an elected representative’s record,” Ray said.

“We probably should have been on him for it before, but we’re on it now,” he said.

Lugar’s current race is the May 8 Republican primary election. He is being challenged by state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd, is the lone candidate in the Democratic primary, unless someone else files by noon today.

Willkie questioned the timing of the Democrats’ inspection of Lugar’s expenses.

“There’s no race between Richard Lugar and Joe Donnelly,” he said. “Richard Lugar and the Lugar campaign have never said anything about Joe Donnelly. So all of a sudden the Democrats want to play in the Republican primary?”

Willkie suggested state Democrats release the expense records of Donnelly and other past and present congressmen in their party.

House disbursements posted online indicate Donnelly had no lodging expenses for the first nine months of 2011, the most recent data available.

bfrancisco@jg.net