Story by Michael McNutt:
Contributions from executives affiliated with a company interested in buying the state’s workers’ compensation agency, as well as the firm’s political action committee, had no influence on a legislative task force which looked into selling it, the panel’s two co-chairmen said.
The contributions, which total $12,000 each to Sen. Cliff Aldridge and Rep. Dan Sullivan, were made two weeks before a company executive urged the task force to sell CompSource Oklahoma.
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Okie Pundit is still receiving new information, but this is what we know at this time about contributions made to Representative Dan Sullivan, Assistant Majority Floor Leader, and Senator Cliff Aldridge.
Two Republican legislators accepted a total of $24,000 in campaign contributions over a period of three days in September from an insurance company that stands to gain financially from recommendations made by a task force that studied the possible privatization of Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system. The Task force on Privatization of CompSource Oklahoma was studying whether to mutualize CompSource or sell it off to a private company.
Representative Dan Sullivan and Senator Cliff Aldridge, the two chairmen of the task force, each accepted $12,000 from the National American Insurance Company (NAICO) while the task force met. Though initially Sullivan and Aldridge ostensibly claimed they could not say whether mutualization or privatization was the best course, by the end of the task force meetings in December both were big proponents of selling the system to a private company. In fact, Sullivan recently filed House Bill 2662, legislation that would require the state to sell CompSource by December 31, 2011.
And suddenly NAICO has emerged as the leading candidate in the politically-charged battle to purchase CompSource.
We believe NAICO engaged in a coordinated effort to funnel money to Sullivan and Aldridge in order to influence the recommendations of the task force and pending legislation.
It appears NAICO used at least three different guises to make the campaign contributions in an effort to make them difficult to track. We know the contributions were given using different company names and political action committees, as well as from employees of the company who listed different company names on their contribution forms. According to his ethics report, Senator Aldridge received $12,000 for his campaign committee, Cliff Aldridge for Senate 2006. All of the contributions were accepted on the same day from the following groups and individuals:
Representative Sullivan also accepted $12,000 to his Friends of Dan Sullivan 2010 campaign committee. These contributions were made on the same day from the following groups and individuals:
We see three different organizations listed here as the employers of the insurance-connected contributors who all just happened to contribute on the exact same day: Chandler USA Inc., NAICO, and National American Life Insurance. And then there is the political action committee, Promoters of Private Enterprise, who’s stated goal is to “promote private awareness of the benefits of freely developed enterprise.” Employees of NAICO interchangeably used “NAICO” and “National American Insurance Company” on the contribution forms, thus making it more difficult complete searches of the ethics reports. Frank Gulley also misspelled NAICO, listing his employer as MAICO. Furthermore, on two different contribution forms, Mark Paden, the Executive noted above, lists his employer as Chandler USA Inc. and National American Insurance Company.
Indeed, this is what really caught our attention: National American Insurance Company lists its address as 1010 Manvel Avenue, Chandler, OK.
Chandler USA Inc. lists its address as 1010 Manvel Avenue, Chandler, OK.
And Promoters of Private Enterprise, the political action committee that maxed out to Sullivan and Aldridge on the same day Chandler USA Inc and NAICO employees donated, lists its address as 1010 Manvel Avenue, Chandler, OK.
All of them are from the exact same address and appear to be run by the same family. While investigating, we also learned that employees of Chandler USA Inc. have NAICO email addresses. In addition to contributing directly to the candidates, Brent LaGere and Mark Paden (along with Tony Gulley) contributed over $10,000 to Promoters of Private Enterprise, which in turn gave the maximum contribution to Sullivan and Aldridge. Lance LaGere was one of the witnesses who appeared before the Task Force to testify in favor of selling the system.
So let’s be clear: there is no distinction between Chandler USA Inc., NAICO, and Promoters of Private Enterprise. They are all the same organization simply using different names and means to disguise their contribution patterns and influence those who have the power to drop current state assets into their pockets.
At OkiePundit, we favor the privatization of the workers’ compensation system because we believe it will be the most efficient system and we do not believe running such a system to be within the realm of state responsibilities. But we do not favor privatizing it through politically and financially duplicitous means, which is what appears to be going on right now.
This situation revives fears of Pay-to-Play at the State Capitol and implicates our entire campaign ethics system. What we have here is a form of bribery that has been done through the legal means of our campaign finance system. A private corporation effectively gave $24,000 to two legislators who had enormous power in deciding the fate of a state-owned system that is potentially very profitable for that corporation.
Why did Sullivan and Aldridge accept these campaign contributions from a company they knew would stand to profit from their decisions specifically related to the task force they were co-chairs of? Why did the company decide to make the contributions in the middle of the task force study? And why did they make the contributions when they knew one of their executives would be testifying about the matter before the task force?
We are still finding additional information, including information that connects Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland and Brad Henry’s brother-in-law to this story. As more details come in, we will keep you informed. This story will be updated as new information is added.
The race to be the next House Speaker is heating up as AP reporter Tim Talley wrote about it earlier this week, and now fellow blogger Chris Arps writes about the race between Kris Steele and Ken Miller.
From the Oklahoma City Conservative Examiner, by Chris Arps
Kris Steele: The Next Oklahoma House Speaker?
As Republicans struggle all over America to reclaim their identity, Oklahoma House Republicans face a tough decision this fall as they face an election for the next Speaker of the House.
The Republican’s rules state that an election must be held between the middle of October and November 15th, and two members are the leading candidates:
Speaker Pro Tem Kris Steele of Shawnee and Appropriations Chairman Ken Miller of Edmond.
Steele, an associate pastor at a Shawnee Methodist church, is the early favorite over Miller. But conservative Republicans outside the house GOP caucus are wary of Steel’s liberal tendencies, and the liberal-leaning and indolent Oklahoma press has done nothing to expose those flaws. “Republicans in Oklahoma aren’t going to know a damn thing about this race, and the ‘aw-shucks’ liberal ab out to become Speaker,” one political insider, an avowed Steele critic, says about the election.
Many observers around the Capitol for the last decade have expressed amusement to OKPNS over reports that Rep. Steele may rise to the highest position in the House and recalled details of his interesting political career.
First elected to the state House of Representatives at the age of 25, Steele had barely begun his second term when he launched an ill-advised campaign for the Senate seat vacated by Brad Henry. Steele’s bid for the Senate was unsuccessful, and he returned to his relatively safe House seat where he forged a
strong friendship with disgraced ex-Speaker Lance Cargill, then considered a rising star among House Republicans. Their shared ambition and closeness in age – Steele is just a few years younger than Cargill –led to them being a team inside and outside the Capitol, with their families eventually vacationing together.
As Cargill rose through the ranks, first as floor leader and then as a leading candidate for Speaker, Steele was right there at his side, assisting with Cargill’s ‘strategery.’ “Then the two had an abrupt falling out and battle lines were drawn,” says one former member. Despite Steele’s claims in a recent AP article that their relationship ended over Steele’s discomfort with Cargill’s fundraising and political tactics, concerns that were not raised until more than a year and half later (probably because of persistent rumors that Steele has a few fundraising skeletons of his own), insiders say the real cause for the fracture between the once tight pair was that Cargill would not promise Steele the position of Majority Floor Leader, the one caucus leadership position that is appointed by the Speaker.
“When Cargill wouldn’t promise the position to him, Steele recruited a candidate who would,” said another longtime presence at the Capitol. Within days freshman legislator Dan Sullivan declared his candidacy for Speaker and caucus members still remember the unusual move of the two campaigning together as a
ticket: Sullivan for Speaker and Steele for Floor Leader. The caucus chose Cargill as Speaker, and Steele was relegated to a minimal role in the caucus.
Insiders say Steele clawed his way back into power in 2008 (one said Steele did so by “double-crossing” Rep. Gus Blackwell) by becoming Speaker Pro Tempore.
But just weeks into his new role, members say he frequently vacated the chair and was already out campaigning for the position of Speaker Designate – nearly 11 months before the scheduled election and 20 months before the caucus would officially select a new speaker. Steele returned to the successful caucus election strategies he recommended to Cargill years earlier.
“It’s ironic that he used the very same tactics he once criticized Cargill for,” one member says. Steele then took the unprecedented step of collecting pledge cards from members during the legislative session – a practice that former Speaker Todd Hiett reportedly prohibited and one member called so “distracting and divisive” that the Senate Republicans’ caucus rules explicitly ban it.
Another source says Steele may be “the most blindly ambitious member the House Republicans have ever seen,” but has successfully learned to cloak that ambition with his “quiet demeanor, aw-shucks speech and ministerial facade.”
Whether Kris Steele will, in fact, become the next Speaker – something many caucus members apparently still doubt very seriously – will be determined by the House Republicans sometime this fall.
The Republican State House Committee (RSHC) sent the following report out today touting the 61-member strong caucus’ accomplishments this past legislative session.
Oklahoma’s 2009 legislative session ends: House Republicans continue wave of conservative reform
On Wednesday, May 27, the 2009 Oklahoma legislative session came to an end. This was the first session in state history in which both the House and Senate were led by Republicans, giving us a united front in the fight for conservative change.
Here are some key reforms that came out of Oklahoma’s Republican Legislature this year:
A Balanced Budget without a Tax Increase- Despite the economic downturn, House Speaker Chris Benge (R-Tulsa) and Budget Chairman Ken Miller (R-Edmond) helped compose a balanced state budget that leaves funding intact for critical services – roads, bridges, education, health care, public safety – without a tax increase or a rollback of the recent tax cuts!
Lawsuit Reform – This year’s historic lawsuit reform package, crafted in part by Rep. Dan Sullivan (R-Tulsa), limits the ability of trial attorneys to make frivolous claims and file class-action lawsuits, which result in job losses. It also eases the medical malpractice insurance burden on physicians, many of whom have left Oklahoma because of the financial strain.
Energy- With gas prices in flux, the energy reform package pushed by Speaker Chris Benge (R-Tulsa) provides numerous tax incentives for both citizens and business owners to use alternative energy sources. These include natural gas energy for cars, geothermal energy for homes, and wind energy for businesses.
Health Care- Once again, House Republicans used free-market solutions in this year’s health care reform package, authored by House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele (R-Shawnee). The plan offers greater incentives for employers to provide health care insurance coverage for employees, as well as for individuals to pay for it themselves.
Pro-Life Reform – Since Republicans took the state House in 2004, Oklahoma has enacted pro-life reforms each year, and 2009 was no exception. Reps. Dan Sullivan (R-Tulsa), Pam Peterson (R-Tulsa) and others led the effort to outlaw abortions based on gender and to require better record-keeping for abortions in Oklahoma.
As they have for the past five years, House Republicans worked in 2009 to modernize Oklahoma’s state government, make efficient use of taxpayer dollars and cut out the waste. Bringing common sense to state government isn’t easy – especially when it previously had not been the norm. But we are seeing true progress at our Oklahoma Capitol. With your help, we can keep it going.
The Republican State House Committeeis the main political arm of the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives.
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Primary House author Representative Daniel Sullivan
Senate Pro-Tempore Glenn Coffee, Primary Senate author
Following years of dedicated effort, House members today overwhelmingly passed comprehensive changes to the state’s civil justice system that represent an agreement with lawmakers, business advocates, doctors, mineral owners and trial lawyers. Governor Brad Henry called the package “a strong piece of reform legislation” and “perhaps the most comprehensive tort bill in state history,” an indication that he will sign the bill after passage in the Senate this week.
The compromise bill is the culmination of years of work between lawmakers and stakeholders to find a way to reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits in Oklahoma, without closing access to the courthouse.
Under the compromise, House Bill 1603 contains an assortment of reforms, including the following:
As a practicing attorney, I know firsthand the tremendous cost and burden associated with litigation. And I join the overwhelming majority of Oklahoman’s who are disgusted with ridiculous lawsuits like the one filed just a couple of years ago against the State of Oklahoma by the teachers’ union (OEA) asking the court to make decision on how to spend government revenue. The reforms in House Bill 1603 pass the test because they are carefully crafted to reduce or eliminate frivolous lawsuits while not taking away our right to access the courts and to trial by jury that our Founding Fathers fought and died to preserve.
I have only one concern about HB 1603, that is the task force it sets up to figure out how the state will obtain a reinsurance policy to cover damages awarded to victims of medical malpractice in cases where the cap is lifted. The bill calls for the state (taxpayers) to purchase this reinsurance policy.
The reinsurance policy would pay up to $20 million a year to injured Oklahomans in exceptional circumstances of gross negligence or severe disfigurement. It is estimated such a policy would cost less than $1 million annually for the additional protection.
As a believer in limited government, I thinkn its wrong for the state to be spending tax money to be an insurance policy that will cover the professional negligence of bad doctors (or any other negligent party). After speaking with several legislators who tell me they too are dead set against speding tax dollars to buy such insurance, I will be keeping an very wide open set of eyes on this task force and all conservatives ought to also.