As the race for the 90th District seat in the N.C. House of Representatives heats up, the N.C. Republican Party is attacking Rep. Leonard Sossamon’s brief legislative record.

But Sossamon, a Democrat from Concord, says the party of his opponent, Linda Johnson of Kannapolis, is not only distorting the truth, but telling outright lies in its campaign to discredit him.

The N.C. GOP has mailed at least four fliers to voters in the 90th District — which includes Kannapolis and Concord — during the past two weeks.

Three of the glossy fliers accuse Sossamon of voting to “raid” the state’s Medicaid reserve fund for $70 million to pay for “pet projects” like studies of turf grass and ocean crabs.

One mailing shows a stack of $20 bills being passed from one hand to another, with an arrow pointing to Sossamon’s picture, indicating the money will be passed to him.

Inside, the text begins, “Leonard Sossamon raided the Medicaid Trust Fund. You just can’t trust Leonard Sossamon.”

The bill the flier refers to as its source is House Bill 1840, the appropriations portion of this year’s budget. Sossamon scoffs at the idea that he’s being attacked for voting for the budget.

Republicans voted in favor of the budget as well and are running for re-election touting it as an achievement, he said. Notably among them, Sossamon said, is Rep. Charlotte Gardner of Rowan County.

“Charlotte voted for that, and Idid too; so did Sen. Fletcher Hartsell (of Cabarrus County), who is a Republican,”he said.“I think it’s strange that, in my case, they’re trying to beat me up about it, and in other cases they’re running positive ads about it.”

In fact, the N.C. Democratic Party has done the same thing. It mailed a flier praising Sossamon for voting for increased teacher pay and help for seniors who can’t afford prescription drugs, citing the same budget bill.

The General Assembly did move $70 million from the Medicaid reserve fund to the regular 1999 Medicaid fund to pay for current expenses. That money replaced $70 million in the regular Medicaid fund that was then returned to the general fund and became part of the state’s $18 billion budget.

The money could conceivably have been used to pay for the studies the GOP refers to, but since it became part of the state’s larger general-fund pot, it’s hard to track specific dollars.

The reserve fund was established to contain federal money put into the Medicaid system to help reimburse hospitals for their care of Medicaid patients, said a fiscal analyst familiar with state government.

When the federal government overpays, the money is placed in the reserve, or trust account. Eventually the state must settle up with the federal government on overpayments.

But Medicaid is an entitlement program, meaning anyone who meets the criteria set for receiving it cannot be turned down, Sossamon said.

“I think what they’re trying to do is confuse seniors,” Sossamon said.

Dan Gurley, political director for the N.C. GOP, admits that Republicans as well as Democrats voted in favor of the budget containing the transfer of funds.

“There are a lot of bills that come out of the General Assembly that are not party-line votes,” Gurley said. “In this instance, we believed this was a bad vote for residents of the 90th House District.”

Gurley said the 90th District seat is a “top tier” race for Republicans, who need to win seven seats in November to regain control of the House.

It is an attractive race for several reasons, he said, including the fact that Sossamon was appointed to replace Richard Moore, who stepped down in May after pleading guilty to several felonies.

“With him being appointed to the seat, there was not a long legislative record,” Gurley said. “We had to look at the votes he cast while in office.”

Gurley said the Republican party’s research indicated the Medicaid issue “played very well for us, that it was important to voters in the district and it was a strong issue for Republicans to put forward.”

The fliers say they are not endorsed by a candidate. And Johnson, the Republican running for the seat, said she couldn’t comment specifically on them since she didn’t give them her blessing.

But she said she opposes the “creative accounting” of shifting money among funds. A similar move, she said, left a hole in the ABCs fund for teacher bonuses that the state may be unable to fill next year.

“I think you ought to balance the budget, and I think you ought to not leave holes for the next year,”she said.

Johnson said she has received no direct financial support from the state GOP. It has sent out a flier on her behalf, saying that she’ll support a prescription drug plan for needy seniors.

The N.C. Democratic Party has mailed at least two other fliers praising Sossamon — one saying he’ll stand up to HMOs for better health care and one saying he’ll protect private information from telemarketers.

The Republican party mailed at least one flier departing from the Medicaid issue. That one accuses Sossamon of voting to raise taxes on gas and electricity, but doesn’t cite a specific bill. Sossamon denies the charge.

“They really screwed up this time, because that was voted on before I was ever in the House of Representatives,” he said.