The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE - They've met in a formal debate only once, but the two candidates in the race to become Louisiana's insurance commissioner are engaged in a bitter war of words from afar, slinging accusations on paper.

Republican Dan Kyle flooded the Insurance Department run by Democratic incumbent Robert Wooley with lengthy public records requests. He says he's trying to determine if Wooley has given out an "unusually high number" of waivers allowing convicted felons to regain insurance licenses and if Insurance Department staff members have helped Wooley's campaign on state time.

Kyle followed up with a lawsuit, saying Wooley was dragging his feet on supplying the documents.

Wooley fired back with accusations in a press release criticizing Kyle, former state legislative auditor, for requiring employees in the legislative auditor's office to join a speech club and said the policy would continue if Kyle became commissioner.

A state legislator got involved in the fray as well, sending a letter to the legislative auditor's office suggesting Kyle's old staff had been helping the GOP candidate with his campaign - violating the policies of the office. While Wooley says he knew nothing of the allegation, Kyle pins it directly on his opponent, calling it a dirty campaign tactic.

Wooley says Kyle is trying "to get free stories on TV every night" in a race not registering largely among voters and routinely overshadowed by the gubernatorial campaigns. Kyle says Wooley's campaign has started to stumble and is using a "political smokescreen."

The printed allegations continue the heated tenor that started well before the Nov. 15 runoff. Discussions of insurance seem to have given way to a battle of personalities.

Pushed into the background are insurance issues like how to control rates, bringing insurance companies into Louisiana and whether to take campaign contributions from insurance companies.

Wooley took over the insurance commissioner's job after Jim Brown was convicted of lying to the FBI and served a six-month prison term. Brown was the third consecutive insurance commissioner to go to federal prison.

Kyle, who often rankled public officials with scathing audits of government agencies, initially ran for governor but dropped out in the face of strong opposition, including personal attacks from Gov. Mike Foster, who now supports Kyle for insurance commissioner.

Wooley led the primary with 37 percent of the vote; Kyle was close behind with 34 percent. No independent polls have been made public in the runoff. But private polls indicate it still is close and with no clear front-runner.

The war of paper started with Kyle's public records requests. The first sought "a copy of all letters or other documents authorizing convicted felons to engage in the business of insurance." The second asked for nine types of items, including leave slips, timesheets, and vehicle and telephone records.

"We're just checking to see if the public's money is being used to fund his campaign," Kyle said.

Wooley called the requests political and said he was running his campaign out of his campaign office, not out of the insurance department.

A day after the second public records request, state Rep. Taylor Townsend sent a letter to Grover Austin, who heads the legislative auditor's office, asking for an investigation into allegations about staff involvement with Kyle's campaign.

Townsend's letter spoke of allegations that Kyle was being flown to campaign events on an airplane owned by an auditor in the office and that other members of the staff were in contact with the Kyle campaign. Those activities would violate the policy that bars any involvement with a political campaign, down to a ban on bumper stickers supporting candidates.

Austin responded in his own letter, saying the accusations were untrue.

"On occasion over the last months, I and members of the staff have talked with Dr. Kyle. In the course of these social conversations, I am sure the staff has exchanged pleasantries, such as inquiring how his campaign was progressing. I do not consider these innocent inquiries of a retiree to be a 'part of his campaign,'" Austin said.

Townsend, who did not return a call seeking comment, did not say in the letter where he heard the allegations against Kyle. Kyle said Wooley was involved, but Wooley denied it.

A few days after the exchange of letters, Wooley issued a press release questioning Kyle's policy to require staff in the auditing office to participate in the Toastmasters International public speaking program. That policy created a stir during the 13 years Kyle headed the office.

Wooley said Kyle's former employees were forced "against their will" to spend free time writing speeches like "My Dog Has a Thing for Power Tools" and received negative evaluations if they complained about the speaking program.

Kyle said senior staff who had to make presentations to the Legislature were required to participate in Toastmasters but were reimbursed by the state as part of regular training.

He said the auditor's office spends thousands of dollars on an audit and only has a short time to make the presentation to legislators. "You want the presentation to be as effective and efficient as possible," he said.

Kyle said he likely would institute a similar policy if he is elected to the insurance job. "That's just a matter of professionalism."

Wooley's press release called it a "flagrant abuse of power and endorsement of taxpayer waste" that showed Kyle didn't understand how state government should operate.

And when the paper stack already seemed pretty tall, Kyle added to it Thursday, filing a lawsuit saying Wooley wasn't moving fast enough to comply with his public records requests.