WASHINGTON— Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown says his staff is to blame for autobiographical passages on his official Senate website that were lifted word for word from a 2002 speech by a former senator.
Brown's spokesman, John Donnelly, says aides used former North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole's website as a template and that the passages were transferred inadvertently without being rewritten.
The Democratic group American Bridge, which discovered the matching words, is accusing the Massachusetts Republican of plagiarizing. Donnelly calls it a staff level oversight that has been corrected.
The passages were about the values that parents instill in their children.
Brown, a Republican, is running for re-election in 2012 for the seat long held by the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.
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