Democrats are decrying as a dirty trick the fact that a former executive director of the Illinois GOP pretended to be a college newspaper reporter and got on a press phone call last week with Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, a Springfield Democrat running against U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville.

WCIA-TV reported Wednesday that Nick Klitzing, who oversaw the campaign of former Gov. Bruce Rauner in 91 downstate counties before getting the job with GOP that he has since left, used a made-up name to get on the call, where he asked pointed questions of the Democratic candidate. The station reported that Klitzing was asked to make the call by the Davis campaign, and that Klitzing said using a fake name was his own idea.

On that call, Klitzing identified himself as “Jim Sherman,” and said he worked for the student newspaper at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. But, the station reported, there is no such person working at that publication.

“I was willing to help,” the station quoted Klitzing. “I’m just a volunteer.”

“Once more, Rodney Davis proves his calls for civility are empty with his campaign again caught engaging in desperate, underhanded tactics,” said Jacob Plotnick, Londrigan’s campaign manager. “It’s not surprising that the Davis campaign is resorting to dirty tricks. They know Rodney can’t run on his record.”

The Davis campaign and Klitzking had not responded to requests for comment from The State Journal-Register by midday Thursday.

Last week’s conference call was with Londrigan and Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, a national campaign finance reform group that has endorsed Londrigan. Reporters had to contact the Londrigan campaign to get information on how to participate in the call.

“Career politician Rodney Davis’ campaign has been caught playing political dirty tricks (again),” said a news release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Last August, during the campaign which saw Londrigan lose by less than a percentage point to Davis, the Republican’s campaign field director at the time, Levi Lovell, was arrested after he crashed a Londrigan fundraiser at a pub downtown Springfield. Lovell, who was believed to be intoxicated at the time, was “purposely trying to record members of Londrigan’s campaign, trying to get them to say something inappropriate,” police said. Lovell was initially jailed for aggravated assault and later pleaded guilty disorderly conduct. Lovell was fired from the campaign, and Davis apologized to Londrigan for the incident.

Contact Bernard Schoenburg: bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com, 788-1540, twitter.com/bschoenburg.