LITTLE ROCK — In this country, you gotta get the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power.
-Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface I’ve already made clear my admiration for people who regularly step outside their own needs to help those in peril who have no effective ways of helping themselves.
That’s one reason I respect folks like Arkansas attorney David Couch and activist Martha Deaver. Each has demonstrated a sustained commitment to helping prevent the physical and mental neglect and abuse that frequently occur inside our state’s nursing homes.
Lately, Couch has invested the considerable time required to research contributions made to our elected public officials by nursing-home owners and their influential political action committee. Public records show that industry gave $42,000 to many state senators during the last reporting period. It’s a similar story, Couch says, over in the House.
“Not only do the legislators vote on laws dealing with each resident’s safety,” he said, “but also on the money to be paid to these homes for Medicaid.”
It must be nice for one in power to be in a position of accommodating any industry that supports one with lots of dollars. The perfectly legal process is better known as mutual backscratching. And I see it as probably the ugliest aspect of politics.
Couch is no longer surprised by much of whatever he finds in the arena of good ol’ boys playing “politricks” (the appropriate word of Fayetteville Rev. H.D. McCarty). Couch says he’s become particularly interested in the public servants responsible for ensuring civil rights and just treatment for the thousands of innocent residents behind some 233 nursing-home doors across Arkansas.
Especially intriguing is how many nursing-home owners, as well as their PACs in Arkansas and every other state, regularly make hefty politicaldonations even to the state’s attorney general (the current of which has announced he’s running for governor in 2014.)
“I have an issue with the AG-whoever that is-taking contributions from nursing homes,” Couch says. “How would you feel if your attorney was taking money from your opponent? Lawyers have an obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”
Yes indeed, I’d say they most certainly do have that moral and ethical obligation, especially those living on the public payroll whose primary responsibility is to serve the overall public interest.
“I just have this problem with any official accepting a campaign contribution from a life-and-death industry over which a state agency has enforcement responsibilities,” Couch continued.
“With limited [liability] insurance carried by most nursing homes nowadays, the attorney general is about the only organization that can do anything to help their residents. As a plaintiff’s attorney I can tell you it takes a substantial sum of money to pursue a claim against a [nursing] facility. And with little chance of recovery [for a victim of abuse or neglect], it really ties one’s hands.”
Couch said he checked the secretary of state’s website and found contributions of late made to the attorney general from nursing-home corporations that own homes in Arkansas. They included KJM Management, Ashton Place LLC, Convacare Management, GGNSC Administrative Services (formerly Beverly Enterprises), Perennial Business Services, Pioneer Holdings and Central Arkansas Nursing Centers.
Space limitations prevent me fromlisting all the industry’s contributions to that office or to your own legislators.
But you can discover for yourself by going to the secretary of state’s website or to followthemoney.org and searching for the keyword “Arkansas.”
Interestingly, state law allows the attorney general to act against nursing homes that chronically violate the law. But Couch says those investigations also are conducted secretly according to the statutes.
Former attorney general, now Gov. Mike Beebe, secured a $1.3 million settlement against a nursing home in 2004. The gritty details of that case are another story for another column.
Deaver says she’s often watched the political games played in our Capitol when it comes to laws affecting nursing homes and persuasive lobbyists earning their keep. What she’s witnessed, to her, seems surreal, even disgraceful.
“I’ve spoken with legislators on bills that meant literally life or death for many nursing-home residents and found they hadn’t even read them. It’s very disheartening to see how our legislators who readily accept these contributions do their work and conduct themselves supposedly in the public interest.”
So, valued readers, how do you feel about all this politicized “buy yer lunch, dinner, whatever?” bigbucks back-scratching down in River City?
Do you believe a life-and-death industry whose performance is legally answerable to a state agency should be able to make political contributions to the chief politician in that agency, or give thousands to the elected public servants who make the laws that govern their industry?
Go ahead, ask me the same question.
That would be a “no.” -
Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition.
Editorial, Pages 15 on 06/23/2012