A Democrat running for Nebraska's 2nd District House seat is apologizing on his Web site for a borrowed paragraph he said was an accident.

But Jim Esch's primary opponent, Richard Carter, said the words are in the first person and clearly plagiarism.

Esch's Web site had an entry responding to incumbent Republican Lee Terry's proposal for the mortgage crisis.

One of the paragraphs was in an April 10 article from the Brookings Institution.

Esch, an attorney, said he cut and pasted a document produced by his staff and inadvertently omitted the citation.

Carter is an economics instructor and captain in the Air Force Reserve.

The two meet in the May 13 primary. Terry faces a primary challenge from Steven Laird of Omaha.