Category: Spring 2006 Newswire
McGovern Has Taken 10 Privately Paid Trips Since 2000
WASHINGTON, May 2— Since 2000, U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) has made 10 trips abroad that were paid for by private groups. One of the trips, to a conference in Paris, was funded by a non-profit group promoting business and trade. Five trips to Cuba, three trips to Colombia and one trip to El Salvador were funded by non-profit educational, research or human rights organizations. Mr. McGovern has long had an interest in Latin America.
The total cost of the 10 trips was $26,751, according to travel disclosure forms filed by Mr. McGovern with the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The public filings, which each member of Congress must make for trips paid for by private sources, were examined by the Telegram and Gazette. In addition to privately funded trips members of Congress take official trips, often with other members, that are paid for by taxpayers.
The cost of Mr. McGovern’s privately funded trips ranged from $1,469 to $4,850, with expenses divided between travel, lodging, meals and other services, such as translator fees.
Mr. McGovern’s trip to Paris in February 2004 cost $4,524, which included the expenses for Mr. McGovern’s wife. It was paid for by the International Management and Development Institute.
Sabine Schleidt, executive vice president of the Institute, said the organization brings politicians and international business people together to discuss economic issues. Schleidt said she was on the trip that McGovern took and that it allowed members of Congress to speak with multinational businessmen “in an off the record setting.”
Twelve other members of Congress, including Reps. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Mark Souder (R-Ind.), were on the trip. According to Ms. Schleidt, the institute’s funding comes “100 percent” from corporate donors.
According to an itinerary provided by Ms. Schleidt, the trip to Paris included a guided tour of the Louvre, a cocktail reception, and several roundtable discussions with foreign dignitaries.
Michael Mershon, Mr. McGovern’s press secretary, said the congressman attended because he wanted to speak with multinational companies such as Sodexho about sponsoring food programs abroad. Mr. McGovern co-founded the Congressional Hunger Caucus and co-chairs the Congressional Hunger Center.
Privately paid travel in which highly paid lobbyists representing corporate clients have the chance to meet privately with members of Congress has become more controversial in recent weeks after lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted paying for various members of Congress to journey abroad to exotic locales, if only to play 18 rounds of golf.
But not all privately paid travel is all play and no work, according to Mr. McGovern, who said the private trips can be more productive than those funded by taxpayers.
“The problem with U.S. government-funded trips is that I have to follow a certain protocol when I go to places,” Mr. McGovern said in a recent interview. “Usually I have to go with somebody who is assigned to me from the State Department or Department of Defense.”
On government-sponsored trips, embassies arrange meetings and set up itineraries for members of Congress, detailing whom they will speak to and which events they will attend. Members of Congress are given very little leeway to amend their schedules, Mr. McGovern said, and need to seek approval for the trip from the Speaker of the House before they may receive any tax money.
“I don’t find that particularly useful when I go to a place like Colombia, where I disagree with our policy, or Cuba,” he said. “To me, the only purpose of foreign travel is to learn, and if my trip is going to be basically embassy briefings, which are all useful, then I can do it here. I wouldn’t need to go anywhere.”
Ray Laraja, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said congressional travel of any kind can be good, even if the trip is a junket.
“We don’t want McGovern just to hang out in Worcester and in Washington,” Mr. Laraja said. “It does become questionable in terms of private travel, but you have to also remember it’s a public expense that people aren’t willing to pay for.”
Congressional members, especially of different parties, he said, don’t have much time to sit down to discuss the issues anymore.
“Even if it is a junket, if they are going with other members [of Congress] that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he added. “It allows them to get to know each other better.”
Brian Darling, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, agrees with Laraja that traveling with members of both parties is important, but said representatives “should travel far and wide and not just focus on one or two countries.”
“Privately paid travel is not inherently a bad thing,” Mr. Darling said. “It’s better than the taxpayers paying because they already pay for plenty. If the members want it to be done with complete transparency then there is nothing wrong with it.”
However Mary Boyle, press secretary for Common Cause, a nonprofit organization promoting open and accountable government, said due to current ethics violations, an outside commission should be created to monitor privately paid travel.
“The concern about travel is this issue of access— people who can afford a corporate jet, etc. can get the kind of access that a common person would not normally get,” she said. “There should be some sort of outside body to review these trips. Short of that there should be no privately funded travel until that happens.”
A vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, Mr. McGovern first traveled south of the border as a college student in the late ’70s to study the impact of the trade embargo on Cuba. He has returned to Cuba more than a dozen times since then, including during the late Pope John Paul II’s visit with Fidel Castro in 1999, and five times over the past seven years.
“I thought back then, as I do now, that our policy toward Cuba as an economic blockade, is just dumb,” Mr. McGovern said. “It doesn’t help the Cuba people and I think it has probably resulted in Castro hanging on for so long. If something goes wrong in Cuba, Fidel gets to blame it on the U.S. embargo.”
A trip to Cuba in April 2000 sponsored by the Washington Office on Latin America, a non-governmental organization that works to promote human rights, sought to facilitate an increase in academic exchanges with the United States. Presidents and deans of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Massachusetts-Boston met with their Cuban counterparts. The Washington Office on Latin America paid Mr. McGovern’s expenses of $2,150.
“I think there is a lot of interest and focus on Cuba after the Pope’s visit, and that generated a lot of the interest in increased academic contact,” said Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America. “The Clinton administration in 1999 made academic exchange much easier.”
George Humphrey, executive director of college relations at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, said because of Mr. McGovern’s negotiations with the Cubans, the college returned to Cuba in 2003 to attend the Inter-American Conference on Pharmacy.
“The dean of the college of pharmacy in Havana came to Boston to receive an honorary degree and spoke at our commencement,” Mr. Humphrey said. “The following year we went down to the conference and invited Congressman McGovern to be our keynote speaker.” The college paid his expenses of $1,469.
Mr. McGovern has a longstanding relationship with the Washington Office on Latin America, dating back to his service as chief off staff to the late Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-Mass.). He wrote a letter over Moakley’s signature urging the U.S. government not to certify approval of military aid to Chile when Gen. Augusto Pinochet ruled the country.
“They are in my opinion a very serious organization,” Mr. McGovern said. “The trips I’ve been on with them have always been very balanced.”
Oxfam America, a global humanitarian aid organization, paid for a trip for Mr. McGovern in January 2002 to monitor progress in sustainable agriculture programs in Cuba. The cost: $1,900.
Mr. McGovern also has participated in the effort to preserve Ernest Hemingway’s home just outside of Havana. The American author’s home is falling apart because of the harsh humidity and storms of the Caribbean.
Mr. Mershon said tense political relations have made it difficult for American scholars to study what Hemingway left.
The Social Science Research Council, an organization that promotes scholarly exchange internationally, has worked with the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, an academic organization based in Winchester, Mass., and with Mr. McGovern in trying to restore the house, which they view as “both a Cuban and American icon.”
Both organizations paid for trips Mr. McGovern and his wife, Lisa, took in November 2002 and November 2005. The tab was $4,850 in 2002, paid for by the Social Science Research Council, and $3,192 in 2005, paid for by the Hemingway Preservation Foundation.
“These things are worth preserving,” Mr. McGovern said. “I would hate because of politics that we stand by and watch all this stuff disintegrate and crumble.”
Jenny Phillips, president and treasurer of the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, said the organization has been cooperating with the Cuban government to send architects and technicians to restore the author’s estate.
Mr. McGovern, a member of the Foundation’s board, said the process of saving the house has been complicated by U.S. government regulations for travel to Cuba, which limits who can and cannot travel to the country as well as who can take U.S. currency into Cuba.
“If I wanted to bring a bag of cement down there, I’d have to go through a whole other process with the Commerce Department, the State Department and probably other agencies about whether or not I’m authorized to do that,” he said.
Mr. McGovern’s role has largely been one of a cultural diplomat, working with both Cuba’s National Council of Patrimony and the U.S. Government to negotiate a way that allows researchers to work together.
The Social Science Research Council has begun to preserve some of Hemingway’s documents and plans to create digital copies for the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, which already houses the largest collection of the author’s materials in the United States.
“If at the end of the day we can manage our way through it all and we end up protecting Hemingway’s writings and his house, that’s a good thing,” Mr. McGovern said.
In his office in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill, Mr. McGovern hangs pictures of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980. Romero, whom McGovern calls his hero, criticized the Salvadoran government for overlooking the poor and for its use of repressive tactics.
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, which represents institutions such as the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, invited Mr. McGovern and former Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.) to travel to El Salvador last December to mark the anniversary of another tragic event from 1980—the murder of four American missionaries after their van was stopped by Salvadoran National Guard troops.
“We decided to make the trip not to recall the horrific tragedy or to decry the misguided U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America back in the 1980s,” Mr. McGovern wrote in December 2005 in The Nation. “Instead, we made the visit to celebrate the lives of these remarkable women and to be inspired by their selfless example.” The $1,933 tab for Rep. McGovern was picked up by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and by the Washington Office on Latin America.
While working for Rep. Moakley, Mr. McGovern became involved with events leading up to the peace process in El Salvador, particularly with the fate of refugees, according to Mr. Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America.
“On El Salvador, he’s probably the most outspoken and best known member of Congress since he worked as an aide and first arrived here,” Mr. Thale said.
The Washington Office on Latin America, which has sponsored the most trips for Mr. McGovern, is concerned about the role of paramilitary groups in Colombia, Mr. Thale said.
Mr. Thale’s organization paid for three of Mr. McGovern’s trips to Colombia, costing it $1,931, $2,656 and $2,146.
Mr. McGovern “has been concerned that we’ve been spending hundreds of millions of dollars down there [in Colombia] for drug interdiction efforts that don’t seem to be reducing the amount of cocaine on the streets,” Mr. Mershon said.
The billions of dollars spent on drug reduction efforts in Colombia could be better spent on law enforcement programs at home, Mr. McGovern said.
“I think the people in Worcester want to make sure we’re not throwing their tax dollars down a rat hole,” he said. “Heroin is more readily available on the streets today than it was five years ago. Something is not working right.”
“Part of my job is to worry about these things,” Mr. McGovern said. “I think my constituency not only wants me to be engaged, but be engaged where I can be thoughtful and intelligent.”
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The Wal-Mart Bank Hype
WASHINGTON, April 28 – Wal-Mart submitted a bank charter application on July 18, 2005, intending to open a bank on the sixth floor of an office building in Salt Lake City, Utah.
One week later the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the agency that grants bank charters, started to receive the first of almost 2,000 letters opposing the Wal-Mart request.
“Most new bank applications receive little to no interest,” said FDIC spokesman David Barr in a telephone interview. “Typically if we get a half a dozen or more comments that’s considered a lot…. So to receive more than 1,900 comments is highly unusual and is the most we’ve ever received on a new bank application.”
According to the Wal-Mart application, the bank would be solely used to process credit card, debit card and electronic check transactions, which the company says would save it hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Wal-Mart insists it has no plans to open branch banks which would provide consumer banking services in its stores.
But despite what the Wal-Mart application says, many people fear that approval would open the door for hundreds of Wal-Mart banks to be opened in stores around the country.
As a result of the outpouring of opposition, the FDIC recently held several public hearings on Wal-Mart’s application. The first hearings, held on April 10 and 11 at the FDIC headquarters in Arlington, Va., drew both angry opponents from across the country as well as supporters of the application.
Andrew Grossman, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, a consumer group that monitors Wal-Mart’s activities, said in his testimony at the hearing, “This mammoth corporation’s historic patterns of disregarding legal accountability, the potential size of their charter, and the troubling lack of transparency in its application all contribute to our strong belief that this application could threaten the deposit insurance system and endanger America’s fiscal security.”
Jack Blum, counsel to Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal activist organization, voiced strong objections to Wal-Mart’s request. “Should a charter be granted, we believe the world’s largest retailer would quickly move to use its position in the marketplace and its control of prime real estate to become one of the largest banks in the United States,” Blum said.
Blum also raised concerns at the hearing about what might happen if Wal-Mart were to experience financial problems in the future and Wal-Mart’s bank were to fail.
Jane J. Thompson, Wal-Mart Financial Services president, testified that “Wal-Mart would be profoundly disappointed and its customers and communities would be ill-served if Wal-Mart is treated differently than the many commercial and retail firms that now engage in more extensive banking activities than proposed for our bank.”
This type of bank charter request is not unusual from large stores – both Target and Nordstrom went through the same process with little opposition, according to the FDIC
The difference is that Wal-Mart is not just any company, according to Marty Heires, its senior communications manager.
“I think there are a lot of critics of the company these days, most of them are driven by the labor unions, and they oppose us at every turn,” said Heires in a telephone interview. “I think that it was not terribly surprising that there would be some opposition, but I think we would tell you that we’re a little surprised at the level here.”
Many Wal-Marts now have branches of local banks in their stores. Heires said that Wal-Mart leases out the space to third parties and that more than 300 financial institutions operate more than 1,150 branches in the stores with plans to open an additional 250 branches.
In New Hampshire, several of the state’s 26 Wal-Mart stores have branch banks. Citizens Bank has a branch in the Amherst Wal-Mart Super Center. The bank has 18 branches in stores throughout New Hampshire but the branch in the Amherst Wal-mart is the only one located in a Wal-Mart, according to Kathleen Reardon of Citizens Bank.
“Citizens is a leading in-store bank because it provides convenience to our customers,” Reardon said.
Wal-Mart’s Heires maintains that allowing banks to have branches in Wal-Mart stores is as far as the chain would go with public banking.
“All we’re doing is leasing them space because our customers tell us that they like the convenience of having a bank,” Heires said. “It really would have no impact at all [on smaller communities]. The average consumer will not even know this bank exists.”
But the ADA’s Blum is not convinced. He said at the hearing that “Wal-Mart’s application for a charter to enter the banking business is fraught with risk—risk which, in the end, will be guaranteed by the American taxpayer,” Blum said. A Washington attorney, Blum said that he spent much of his life studying banks and has seen retailers forced into bankruptcy because of sudden changes in the commercial environment.
The FDIC “is not and should not be in the business of understanding the risks of large-scale retailing,” said Blum. “It should not have to worry about the safety and soundness of a global retail business dependent on complex global supply systems.”
At least one person not connected with Wal-Mart spoke in favor of the application. Lawrence White, an economics professor at New York University said that it is important for Wal-Mart to be treated like any other store requesting a banking charter. As long as the bank is adequately capitalized and competently managed, and the relationships and transactions between the bank and owner are closely monitored, then it should be allowed a charter, said White.
“The doomsday scenarios of Wal-Mart’s rivals seem far-fetched and unrealistic,” said White. “Such scenarios ought not to be guiding bank regulatory policy.”
A charter is rarely rejected, not because every application deserves a bank, but because the FDIC works closely with the applicant until they come to an agreement on how the bank is to be opened and run, said FDIC spokesman Barr.
Barr said it is somewhat rare for the FDIC to reject a banking application but often applicants are made very aware of FDIC concerns, and a charter is withdrawn before it has the chance to be rejected.
A decision on the application could take up to six months for FDIC consideration, Barr said.
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Olver Arrested at Sudanese Embassy
WASHINGTON, April 28— Five members of the House of Representatives, including two from Massachusetts, were arrested outside of the Sudanese Embassy on Friday during a protest of the conflict in the Darfur region.
James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) and John W. Olver (D-Mass.) were willingly arrested along with Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), James P. Moran (D-Va.), and Shelia Jackson Lee (D-Texas) by the Secret Service Police.
The members of Congress, and six members of religious and humanitarian aid organizations, were charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly after refusing to the leave the embassy property.
Protesters, including some from the Worcester area, clapped and shouted as the police placed plastic handcuffs on those arrested and loaded them into the back of a white police van. They were taken to a local police station and released after paying $50 fines.
Some demonstrators carried pictures of the conflict, while others held a painted banner with a woman crying and the words “stop the killing now” printed on it.
Mr. Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, said the Sudanese government has not cooperated with the international community, including NATO and peacekeeping troops from the African Union.
“Two generations ago, the civilized world stood in silence and looked away,” Mr. Lantos, who is 78 years old, told the protesters before being arrested. “Congress stands united in our determination to put an end to this.”
An estimated 180,000 Sudanese people have been killed by government backed militias in the Darfur region of Sudan. More than 2 million others have been displaced by the conflict.
The members of Congress read from a list of four demands: abiding by a ceasefire, allowing United Nations peacekeeping forces to enter the country, granting full access to humanitarian organizations and continuing peace talks.
The Sudanese government has not taken proper actions to stop the genocide, Mr. McGovern said, and nations across the world “must take immediate concrete steps” to prevent more violence.
“We are here today because words are no longer enough,” he said. “The world has said ‘never again.’ It is time for action.”
Mr. Olver, agreed with Mr. McGovern and said the Sudanese government must be “held responsible” for its actions.
“The international community must act to end the genocide which has now been going on for three years in Darfur,” Mr. Olver said as he held a large poster of a village burning.
Among the protesters were refugees from Darfur. Samia Eshag, who arrived only 24 hours earlier from the troubled region, said it was important for her to give voice to the thousands of women who have been raped.
“The civilians in Darfur are suffering day by day, night by night from all of the attacks,” she said.
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, a Worcester resident who visited Darfur in December of 2004, said Americans need “to do everything they can to stop this genocide.”
“I think anyone that is in a public position that chooses to do nonviolent civil disobedience on this is issue is doing a great service to the people of Darfur,” he said. “I hope more leaders will stand up and do the same thing.”
George Aghjayan, a member of the Armenian National Committee of Central Massachusetts, said he supports Mr. McGovern “one hundred percent” in his actions to “bring awareness to the people of Darfur.”
The Save Darfur Coalition, a group of more than 100 humanitarian organizations which seeks to raise public awareness on the genocide, organized the event and has scheduled rallies in cities across the country on Sunday. The largest rally, which will be held on the National Mall in Washington, is expected to draw thousands of protesters.
The United States and the international community cannot wait any longer to act, Mr. Moran said.
“This is about our humanity,” said Mr. Moran. “To decide not to get involved is to make a decision, the wrong one.”
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State Waits for Word on Storm Cleanup Funds
By Sara Hatch
Washington, April 28 – In early March, Gov. Jodi Rell asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to declare a state of emergency for all of Connecticut to deal with the after-effects of the severe winter storm of February 11 and 12. If granted, the declaration would clear the way for the federal government to help the state and its municipalities pay for the storm cleanup costs, estimated to be $15 million.
If FEMA’s track record in recent years is any indication, the governor has good reason to expect approval. Emergency declarations for winter storms in Connecticut and the rest of New England have dramatically increased in the past four years. The state has received more than $30.2 million in federal reimbursement funds from FEMA since 2003, including approximately $880,000 to reimburse for administrative costs.
Emergency declarations in Connecticut, not to be confused with major disaster declarations for hurricanes, flooding and severe storms, have in particular seen an upswing since 2003. There was an emergency disaster declaration in 2003, again in 2004 and again in 2005. Disaster declaration funds reimburse up to 75 percent of the total costs for the state, with special occasions warranting more funds.
This has been repeated across the New England region. In 2003 to 2005, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire had emergency declarations each year for snow, sometimes more than one in the same year. In the five years before that, in only one year did any of these states receive an emergency declaration for snow.
Connecticut, according to the governor’s office, has consistently applied for aid. From 1951 to 2003 there had been only two emergency declarations: in 1978 and 1993. But in the past four years there have been three as well as another emergency request now pending with the federal government for 2006.
If the request for 2006 is approved, the total could rise to approximately $41.5 million for winter storms since 2003, not including the administrative costs for 2006.
“It’s almost unexplainable,” said Barry Scanlon, a former FEMA official who is now senior vice president and partner at James Lee Witt Associates.
“We set up pretty strict and tight parameters by which you would support someone during a winter incident,” he said, but “now it seems that those purse strings have been opened quite a bit, loosened quite a bit…. I’m very surprised to hear this is the case.”
Scanlon was also careful not to assign blame. He said FEMA has “terrific people” who work well when they have good leadership. When Scanlon worked at FEMA it was a separate agency, but in March 2003 it became a part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
James McIntyre, a spokesman for FEMA, said that if there is a change in why declarations are being granted it doesn’t come from FEMA.
“FEMA's criteria for recommendations has not changed and has not liberalized the rate at which FEMA recommends approval of declarations to the president,” he said. “When FEMA reviews any declaration request under the Stafford Act, there are several primary factors the agency considers in making a recommendation to the President whether assistance is warranted.”
That law, revised in 2000, says that the federal government may reimburse up to 75 percent of storm costs. On certain occasions, depending on the severity of the storm, a higher percentage will be allowed.
There are many criteria FEMA uses to determine whether emergency assistance is merited, including estimated cost of assistance, localized impacts, insurance coverage in force, hazard mitigation, recent multiple disasters and other federal assistance.
There has not been a policy change in the state of Connecticut, according to John Wiltse, a spokesman for Gov. Rell’s office.
“The State of Connecticut…carefully evaluates all requests,” Wiltse said. He added that the state “aggressively takes advantage of any opportunity” for federal assistance.
He said the state has been applying for storm assistance all along, and he had no answer as to why the requests in the past three years had been granted.
Often there are other motivations for giving out money. Russell Sobel, a professor of economics at West Virginia University who has long studied disaster declarations, said that determining what a disaster is more often has to do with who’s on the FEMA congressional oversight committee and whether it’s an election year.
“One of the consistent explanations with this is that it’s political favoritism and manipulation,” Sobel said.
Sobel highlighted the fact that the director of FEMA is a political appointee. James Lee Witt, the director during the Clinton administration, is the only one of the past few FEMA heads to have had experience in disaster relief. Witt is now chairman and CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, a crisis and emergency management consulting firm based in Washington.
Emergency assistance funds are awarded through a distinct process that starts in the states. After any snowfall, states must determine whether it is a “historical” snowfall, according to Wiltse. If there is significant snowfall, the governor then requests help from the Region 1 FEMA office in Boston, which is responsible for Connecticut.
According to FEMA’s official snow policy, there must be a significant amount of snowfall for FEMA to consider reimbursement.
“Requests for emergency or major disaster declarations for winter storms that cause substantial infrastructure damage resulting from snow, ice, high winds and other blizzard conditions shall cite ‘severe winter storm’ as the incident type, the policy reads. “Eligible work will not include snow removal unless ‘record’ or ‘near record’ snowfall criteria are met. Rather, only a very limited level of snow removal, incidental to the recovery, will be eligible for assistance.”
If the regional office approves the request, the governor then sends it to FEMA headquarters, and the president will decide which disaster cleanups deserve federal reimbursement. At that point, an emergency declaration will be issued and funds made available.
Since 1990, the amount of snowfall in Connecticut has been “bouncing around,” according to Kathryn Vreeland, a climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate Center.
In the New Britain area, which she used as an indicator for statewide snowfalls, snow ranged from as high as 55 inches and as low as 12 inches during the 2000-01 and 2004-05 seasons, she said.
Vreeland said one consideration is that winter storms are much better reported than they were 40 years ago. She said that with people driving everywhere, even a “three-inch storm” can have an impact.
Scanlon, who held many positions at FEMA, including director of corporate affairs, during the Clinton Administration, said the process of emergency assistance “evolved throughout the ’90s.”
After 1995 and 1996, FEMA set strict standards for handing out emergency assistance. Scanlon said FEMA even adapted the slogan “no dough for snow” in the period following 1996.
Scanlon said that state and local agencies should be able to handle and “should plan for” these disasters. He also said that FEMA, at least during his tenure, did not recommend reimbursement for “business interruptions.” A March letter from the Connecticut congressional delegation to the President supporting the governor’s request specifically mentions the closure of Bradley International Airport for three and a half hours during the February storm as one justification for granting funds.
As of now, it is a waiting game for Connecticut on whether it will receive funds for the February storms. In the past year, according to Wayne Sanford of Connecticut’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Department, the federal department has been very responsive to the state’s requests for emergency assistance funds, generally answering within 30 days of the first request. Currently, he said, the state has been waiting more than 45 days to get a response from Washington.
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Clean Elections Slowly Spread From Maine
WASHINGTON, April 28—When Maine voters approved the Clean Election Act in 1996 they started a trend. Clean election laws based in part on Maine’s are now on the books in Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina and other states and a number of cities throughout the country.
And there are proposals in California, Maryland and the U.S. Congress that are based in part on Maine’s voluntary campaign finance system. Candidates who choose to receive public funds in Maine must collect a certain number of $5 qualifying contributions, depending on the office being sought. They then receive a set amount of funds from the Clean Election Fund.
Supporters say that clean elections eliminate the taint of special interest from politics and allow more people to run for office. Opponents say the laws impinge on freedom of speech and force taxpayers to support the campaigns of people they disagree with. Public concerns about money and politics have been heightened recently with the political scandals involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Public financing of campaigns are “the most effective way for the voices of ordinary people to be heard in the political process,” said Nick Nyhart, the executive director of Public Campaign, a public financing lobbying group.
Nyhart’s organzation and Common Cause, another reform-oriented lobbying group, are pushing to pass a bill that Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) has introduced. The measure, called the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, would bring to the House a system similar to Maine’s. In the Senate, Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) plan to introduce a comparable bill, Nyhart said.
Tierney’s bill would set up a voluntary system under which House candidates whose political parties garnered at least 25 percent of the vote in the previous election would be allowed to gather 1,500 “seed contributions” of $5. If they meet that target, they would become eligible for public funds in the general election and would have to forgo any private donations.
If a candidate decides not to accept public financing and to raise his or her own campaign funds, an opponent who accepts public financing and is being outspent by the other candidate would receive additional public money.
Nyhart said it would allow politicians to spend less time raising money and more time with voters.
Tierney’s bill does not challenge Supreme Court rulings in Buckley v Valeo and McConnell v Federal Election Commission, which limit campaign finance reform to voluntary systems. But Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) has sponsored a bill that would require all House candidates to receive public financing. Because it would not be voluntary, Obey’s legislation would probably require a constitutional amendment.
Under Obey’s Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act, all candidates for Congress would be required to get their money from a fund fed by contributions from voters. The Federal Election Commission would divide the fund among Republicans, Democrats and occasionally third-party candidates based on the percentage of the vote each party’s candidate won in the previous election.
Maine Rep. Tom Allen (D) has not decided which bill he will support but said, “In my 10 years in Congress, I’ve become increasingly interested in public financing.”
Rep. Michael Michaud (D) said he is concerned about the cost, under the present system of financing congressional campaigns, which can run into the millions.
“I think the public deserves to have confidence that there’s no abuse or no corruption in the whole electoral process,” Michaud said. “We’ve got to make sure that we do something to build confidence in the system.”
Michaud said that public financing would widen the field of candidates for office. Now you have to be independently wealthy or spend 80 to 90 percent of your time raising funds, he said.
He said he has ruled out supporting Obey’s bill because it is in conflict with Supreme Court decisions. Before backing Tierney’s bill, Michaud said, he would wait to see what the final legislation looks like.
The financing for candidates in Obey’s bill would be based on median household income in the congressional district. Michaud’s second district is generally poorer than Allen’s first district, which would mean candidates in the second district would get less money than candidates in the first district. But because the second district straddles the Portland and Bangor television markets, Michaud would need TV time on both, while Allen needs air time only in Portland. Television advertising is the most expensive and one of the most important tools in a modern campaign.
Michaud is the only member of Maine’s congressional delegation who had a chance to run under Maine’s Clean Election Act. In his last campaign for the state legislature in 2000, he decided to raise his own funds because, he said, the new system still had some kinks to be ironed out.
Maine’s two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, say that public funding is unnecessary at the federal level.
“While our current system is far from perfect, I would be reluctant to put taxpayers in the position of being forced to pay for politicians’ campaigns,” Snowe said in a statement. “I believe we should give the Bipartisan Campaign Reform legislation I and my colleagues fought so hard to pass a chance to work, realizing that it has only been in place for one round of federal elections so far.”
Collins said that instead of devoting money to finance political campaigns, Congress should devote more funds to health care, education, defense and homeland security.
“I believe that taxpayer money is better spent meeting the needs of our young, our elderly and our most vulnerable, and protecting our nation against threats from nature and from those who want to do us harm," Collins said in a statement.
The chance of success for either of the House bills is slim. Allen said that a Republican-led Congress was unlikely to pass such reforms; in general, Republicans at the national level oppose public financing of campaigns.
“The only entity that is capable of imposing public financing on congressional campaigns is Congress itself,” said John Samples, the director of the Center for Representative Government at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“They have in the last 30 to 40 years not chosen public financing of congressional campaigns,” Samples said. “They passed it once, but it wasn’t a serious bill and it was vetoed.”
Samples said any bill Congress might pass would be written to ensure as little change as possible in the high reelection rate of incumbents. Since public financing would increase funds for challengers, he said, it is unlikely that Congress will act.
Libertarians oppose government regulation, Samples said, and others oppose public financing because, they say, it would limit freedom of speech and force taxpayers to donate to campaigns they otherwise would not support.
Samples pointed to the federal law that finances presidential campaigns as an example of how such a statute might not work.
Members of reform groups like Nyhart say taxpayers already pay politicians’ salaries that they do not agree with. Voters have been paying $400,000 a year for the last six years, plus numerous perks, to President Bush, although about half of them did not support him in either election.
Samples also disagreed with reform groups’ argument that public financing would eliminate the advantage of access. He said the evidence that donations buy access to members of Congress is hazy at best.
“To this date the Supreme Court has not recognized equality of influence as a good reason for limiting freedom of speech,” Samples said.
Samples said liberalizing campaign finance limits and taking redistricting out of partisan hands would help increase competition in local and House races.
Brian Darling, the director of Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agreed with Samples on many points. He said conservatives in general believe that publicly financed campaigns are a bad idea.
Some of the proposed public financing systems favor major parties, forcing other parties to get more signatures or seed money for the same amount of funds. Darling called this unfair, saying public financing should be for everyone or no one. Darling also said that public financing could lead to more visibility for fringe candidates like Nazis or Islamic extremists.
In California, the state with the largest population, the state Assembly recently approved a public financing bill. It still has to go through the Senate, be signed by the governor, who said he would consider it, and go to the voters as for final approval in a public referendum.
Aaron Cervantes, the Latino outreach coordinator for the California Clean Money Campaign, said that the bill passed the assembly, which is controlled by the Democrats, along party lines. He said his group was “cautiously optimistic” that it would pass the Democratic Senate this year.
Cervantes said his group hopes that if California adopts the system, it will spread even further.
Maine’s system has sparked much of the current debate on the subject. Recently it has prompted a nettlesome debate in the Maine Republican primary campaign.
Peter Mills and Chandler Woodcock, who are running for the Republican nomination for governor, have both accepted public funds. They say that the people of Maine supported the system, noting that it was adopted by ballot initiative.
Mills said that despite some reservations, notably that it forces taxpayers to finance the campaigns of candidates whom they do not support, he enjoys the time that being a clean election candidate gives him to spend with voters.
Woodcock said that without public financing he would not be able to run. He thinks the system, only four election cycles old, still has some fine points that need to be tuned, including how to assure to solvency of the clean elections fund.
Noting that he was not a statewide figure before entering the primary, he said that the increased time with voters has proved invaluable,.
Republican David Emery is running his gubernatorial campaign traditionally. Though he hates fundraising, he said, he is doing it to show that he is serious about cutting government spending at a time when Maine is $5 billion in debt.
“It’s always easier when someone else pays your bills for you,” Emery said. “If I didn’t have to work to pay the bills at my house I could play golf all day, but that’s not life.”
Emery said he support public financing for the state legislature because that is a part-time job that requires a lot of sacrifices of its members. But making candidates for the governorship do their own fundraising, he said, helps to weed out those with little chance of winning.
Gov. John Baldacci (D) is running his campaign traditionally. Jeff Connolly, his campaign manager, said that while the governor supported clean elections in principle, he decided not to run on clean election money because Maine is in debt. Connolly said Baldacci believes the money for the governor’s race, which is the most expensive one in the state, could be better used.
Other states still have kinks to iron out in their systems as well. Connecticut recently enacted a law that bars all contributions from lobbyists and state contractors and their families. Opponents say it is unconstitutional and will be challenged.
Phil Sherwood, the spokesman for the Clean Up Connecticut Campaign, said that his group and other reform organizations did not want that prohibition in the bill, but it was put in at the insistence of Republican Gov. Jodi Rell. Sherwood said he hoped any legal problems would be ironed out eventually.
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Iraq Still Plagued by Many Forms of Corruption and Chaos
By Adam Kredo
WASHINGTON, April 25 - Rampant corruption is just one of the many problems Iraq and the United States face in the three-year-old war in that Middle East country, the head of the Government Accountability Office, Congress's watchdog agency, told lawmakers Tuesday.
David M. Walker, who as comptroller general heads the Government Accountability Office, told a Government Reform subcommittee chaired by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, that a "legacy of corruption" left over from Sadaam Hussein's government continues to plague the war-torn country.
Walker's conclusions were based on several recent agency visits to Iraq and four reports the GAO presented to Congress since last July.
"Transparency and accountability mechanisms are essential given the legacy of corruption inherited from the previous regime," Walker said during the subcommittee hearing. "More needs to be done to help the Iraqis help themselves build capable government institutions that can deliver real results."
Walker said it is "critically important" for the international community to get involved in Iraq, but he said that many countries have been hesitant because of unstable security conditions and Iraq's failure to pay back previous investments.
Walker insisted that Iraq must rid itself of corruption and increase its oil revenues in order to produce a successful and viable economy.
"Sadaam Hussein is gone," he said. "We're dealing with a new situation.. The real key is substantive success."
Addressing the panel, Shays, who just returned from his 12 th trip to Iraq, asked rhetorically, "how do we succeed" in Iraq? He agreed with Walker that America must stay the full course, saying, "I am convinced that premature withdrawal of our military will guarantee failure."
But Walker reminded the committee that the "war in Iraq will not be won by the military alone." Instead, he emphasized the need for reconstruction projects, calling 2006 a critical and revelatory year in America's war effort.
When asked if President Bush had fulfilled his reconstruction promises, Walker said, "No; the objectives have not been met with regard to oil, electricity and water sectors."
As of last month, oil and electricity production was below pre-war levels and the administration's reconstruction goals for oil, electricity and water had not been met, according to the Government Accountability Office's report.
Walker also said that while the U.S. effort has helped Iraq produce clean water, 60 percent of that water is lost to leakage and contamination.
"We have not achieved the objective with regard to potable water," Walker said. "There are problems in transmission, there's a significant amount of loss of water between the water treatment facilities and Iraqi homes."
In addition, Walker said Iraq produced 2.6 million barrels of oil per day before the war, but by 2005, production averaged 2.1 million barrels per day. This resulted in diminished oil revenues.
Walker said that "we've got a ways to go" when it comes to electricity production in Iraq, stating that current levels are "slightly below pre-war levels" and "quite a bit below what the goal is."
Currently, Iraq produces an average of 12.3 hours of electricity per day, but the level can vary depending on area and circumstance, Walker said.
In fiscal years 2001 through 2005, the United States spent $278 billion attempting to secure and stabilize Iraq, according to the Government Accountability Office's report. Another $248 billion, the report said, was spent "to support U.S. military operations and forces."
"Higher than expected security costs, funding reallocations, inadequate maintenance and other challenges have slowed the pace of reconstruction efforts and limited the impact of the services provided," Walker said.
Approximately 130,000 U,S. troops remain in Iraq and about $30 billion has been spent to develop capable Iraqi security forces. Moreover, in February, the administration requested an additional $123 billion "to support U.S. stabilization and reconstruction operations" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Walker estimated that Iraq is likely to need more than the $56 billion originally estimated for reconstruction and stabilization efforts, but he said it was unclear where the money would come from, citing decreased Iraqi oil revenue and international hesitance as reasons for the uncertainty.
A Tale of Two Deputies
By Sara Hatch
WASHINGTON, April 20- If you want to work in the nation's capital you've got to love politics, have a passion for policy and be willing to work long hours. Two Connecticut natives who work for the state's junior senator have brought all of these attributes to their jobs on Capitol Hill.
Siobhan Oat-Judge and Catherine McKenna Ribeiro are deputy press secretaries to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). Oat-Judge is on his staff at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and McKenna Ribeiro is part of the press team in his personal Senate office.
McKenna Ribeiro, 27 had internships with both Congressman John Larson and former member of Congress Barbara Kennelly while still in college. After school she started with Lieberman in his Hartford office, working there for three years before coming to Washington last September.
Oat-Judge, 26, worked in 2003 for Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign bid and then moved to EMILY's List as communications director. Following stints with the Democratic National Committee and a public relations firm she joined Lieberman's committee staff three months ago. Oat-Judge also spent time with ABC News as an intern.
They both say they knew they loved politics from an early age.
For Oat-Judge, it started when she watched her mother work on school board elections and referendums in her hometown She remembers helping her mother by making phone calls while she was still in elementary school..
"I saw on a very local level how my mom and her friends could make a difference," Oat-Judge says.
McKenna Ribeiro, like Oat-Judge, was drawn to politics through close relationships with people. "I've had a lot of great mentors," she says.
"I love the idea of democracy," she says. "I think it's fantastic, and I've always thought it would be great to be a part of it," adding that she loved politics in high school.
A typical day for a deputy press secretary begins with reading the news of the day and seeing where Sen. Lieberman has been featured as well as looking for stories that deal with issues on which the senator and his committee are working. They also field calls from the press and prepare press releases and statements. Some days they will work on publicizing an event Lieberman is holding or a committee hearing.
Both women are on call all the time depending on what's happening in the news, but they say they understand that's part of the job.
"It's a 24-hour news cycle," McKenna Ribeiro says, but she says she knew going into her job the pressure that was inherent in it.
"[Lieberman] never gets to shut off," Oat-Judge says. She said it helps that she knows she's part of a team.
The job of the press team is "to make sure that the trains run on time," McKenna Ribeiro says.
Both women say they are rarely off-duty and even in their free-time politics is not far from their minds.
"We read The Economist," Catherine McKenna Ribeiro says, describing what she does after a long day, adding, after a pause, "We're not kidding."
"No it's true, it's in my bag. I'm reading it on the Metro home tonight," Siobhan Oat-Judge adds, laughing along with McKenna Ribeiro.
McKenna Ribeiro and Oat-Judge are remarkably similar. They grew up in towns 15 miles apart-McKenna Ribeiro in Wethersfield and Oat-Judge in Farmington.
Oat-Judge went to Farmington High School, and received a bachelor's degree from Yale and a master's from Cambridge. McKenna Ribeiro attended Wethersfield High School and Pennsylvania State University and got her graduate degree at the London School of Economics.
Oat-Judge said when she was abroad her foreign friends would ask her about American politics which made her want to come back and "contribute" to the political system.
After graduate school in England, both women wound up working for Lieberman and eventually coming to Washington.
Like most people on Capitol Hill, they always have at least one eye on their ever present BlackBerry devices ready to respond to an urgent press request or staff issue. They also can finish each other's sentences. When McKenna Ribeiro gets pulled out of an interview to handle an "emergency," Oat-Judge picks up for her in mid-answer.
Both have said that one of the things that brought them back to politics is going to England and living there.
When asked what they miss about England, McKenna Ribeiro replies "good chocolate."
"We were just talking about Cadbury's eggs yesterday," she says, laughing along with Oat-Judge.
They may joke about their love of all things chocolate, but McKenna Ribeiro and Oat-Judge are quite serious about politics.
Because they are working for a high-profile senator, Oat-Judge and McKenna Ribeiro get to experience things on a national scale.
In the months following Hurricane Katrina, Lieberman, who is the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, initiated a series of committee hearings on what went wrong during the response to Katrina.
In an e-mail message, Oat-Judge said the work of the committee following the hurricane has had a big impact on her.
"Watching those gut-wrenching images [of Hurricane Katrina] last August was heart-wrenching for me, as it was for most Americans," Oat-Judge said.
"Sen. Lieberman has personally been very dedicated to this investigation, and it's been an honor to be part of a team that is working so hard to help protect Americans from future disasters," she said.
Leslie Phillips, who is the Democratic press secretary for Lieberman's committee, said Oat-Judge has been extremely helpful in the past few months.
"She's been a pillar of support," Phillips said in an interview. "I could always rely on her to do what needed to be done."
Oat-Judge is the fifth assistant who has worked for Phillips on the committee. Phillips said that Oat-Judge is "overqualified" for the job and she feels "lucky to have her."
Right now, neither woman has plans for the future, and each seems content right where she is.
McKenna Ribeiro says she "would never want to say to no" to being a communications director or a press secretary but isn't sure what her future will hold.
"I want to work as hard as I possibly can work and make sure I take every opportunity," she says. "You know, all the doors that open I want to be able walk through them."
If she did move up to press secretary, she would be following the path of Rob Sawicki, Lieberman's press secretary, who previously had been deputy press secretary.
Both of their families still live in Connecticut. McKenna Ribeiro is the daughter or James and Gloria McKenna of Wethersfield and is married to Mick Ribeiro. She has two older sisters, Beth Renach and Sue Merino. Oat-Judge is the daughter of Jim Judge and Patty Oat-Judge of Farmington. She has three sisters and one brother.
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Shays-Farrell Redux
By Adam Kredo
WASHINGTON, April 20 - With U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, in possibly the toughest race of his political career, even his campaign manager has expressed uncertainty about both the outcome and the strategy for re-election victory in November.
Shays is typically known for avoiding negative campaign advertising and focusing his television ads on issues and his own record rather than on his opponent and his campaign plans to continue that approach this time around.
"Am I going to say [our strategy is] going to be a success and we're going to win? No. but do we feel that it's the right path to take? Yeah," said Michael Sohn, 31, who has run Shays' last three congressional campaigns.
As the 19-year incumbent struggles to retain his U.S. House of Representatives seat in a rematch with Democratic challenger Dianne Farrell, the major question many political observers are asking is whether Shays will finally bare his teeth and get aggressive.
Many of these observers doubt that he will.
"On election night, if Chris Shays loses I'm not going to be that surprised," Nathan Gonzales, the political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report based in Washington, said in a telephone interview.
"In 2006 Shays biggest liability is the 'R' behind the name. Being a Republican in his congressional district this year is his biggest liability," Gonzales said. "I think this election is going to be about President Bush for voters in the middle. I'm not saying the voters don't care about other issues, but I think that President Bush's shadow is going to be larger on the race than anything else."
Farrell received 48 percent of the vote against Shays two years ago. The former first selectwoman of Westport spent eight years serving the Fairfield County town, earning a reputation for being fiscally responsible
While Shays won the district in 2004, he lost in several key counties.
According to results reported by individual townships on election night and compiled by CNN, Shays lost in traditionally Democratic Bridgeport, his industrial home town, receiving only 9,946 votes to Farrell's 23,760.
Shays won Weston and Wilton in 2004, but lost in Norwalk, Stamford, and Westport. But in all five jurisdictions, the votes were very close.
Gonzales said this year the biggest "question in the race is how willing is Congressman Shays to take the fight to Farrell." He noted that "in the past [Shays] sort of championed himself on running a clean campaign and really staying above the fray."
Gonzales said there are important differences between negative attack ads and less abrasive issue ads that compare the merits of a candidate's stance on a specific issue. Over the years, Shays has stayed away from running either type of ad and, according to Sohn, the campaign will do the same this year.
"Are we going to run a negative campaign the way the Farrell campaign did two years ago? No," Sohn said. "You're not going to see that from Chris - that's not who he is."
Even while avoiding negative ads, Shays said, he has no problem addressing tough national concerns.
"Our country is facing some very difficult issues, and controversy is the enemy of the incumbent," Shays said in a telephone interview. "I can't tell you how willing I am to confront these issue."
In a nationwide poll conducted in March by Quinnipiac University, 37 percent of those responding said they would be less likely to vote for a congressional candidate if the candidate supports Bush, 16 percent said they would be more likely to vote for that candidate and 45 percent said that it would make no difference.
Bush failed to carry Shays' 4 th district in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, getting only 43 percent of the vote in 2000, and 46 percent of the vote in 2004 to John Kerry's 52 percent.
When asked if he thinks the President's low approval ratings will affect his chances for reelection, Shays said, "A president who is popular helps the ticket and a president who is unpopular hurts the ticket - so what do you think the answer is?"
But while most political experts agree with Shays, some say his reputation as a reform-minded candidate could keep him above the fray.
Donald Greenberg, chairman of the politics department at Fairfield University, said he believes "Chris always has an advantage" in the race. He said Shays will retain this advantage as long as things remain stable domestically and abroad.
"Chris is a powerful incumbent, he has a reputation of being moderate, he has a reputation of being independent, he's well liked in the district by independents as well as by Republicans," Greenberg said.
Lately, Shays' moderate views on many social issues such as gay and abortion rights have been overshadowed by his unwavering support for the war in Iraq. Shays planned to visit Iraq in late April for the 12th time to monitor progress there. While still supporting the cause, Shays acknowledged America's errors.
"We see some big mistakes that have made it very difficult," Shays said. "We dug a deep hole, and both Joe [Lieberman] and I realize that." But he added that in the "process of acknowledging what went wrong, what is going right is important."
Farrell takes a much dimmer view of America's policy in Iraq.
"With the war, obviously we're teetering on the brink of civil war," she said. "We have aided and abetted Al Qaeda and terrorists." She called Baghdad "a disaster area" And she expressed skepticism about Shays' multiple trips to Iraq.
"I've literally had people stop me and say, 'Why does he keep going back to Iraq?' " Farrell said. "One has only to look at the news reports to know that things are highly volatile."
Shays said one of his main efforts in the campaign will be to prevent any ambiguity about his congressional record. "Who is my opponent running against?... She's not running against me she's running against George Bush."
"We're going to basically not allow our opponent to be defining issues in a way that are totally off base," Shays said. "I'm willing to sink or swim based on the reality of the issue, not based on my opponent's efforts to distort me."
In 2004, Shays responded to Farrell's ad campaign by accusing her of distorting his record. Farrell criticized him for his positions on Iraq and local transportation issues and for what she called his "unwavering support of the president" and his agenda.
To counter her charges Shays filmed a commercial titled "Truth" in which he rejected Farrell's criticisms.
In the ad, which is available for viewing on the candidate's Web site, Shays responded broadly to Farrell's allegations.
"My opponent's negative attacks against me are not true," he said sternly as the camera zoomed in on his face. "I don't believe in negative campaigns. I believe in telling the truth."
Shays, in the recent interview, said he would never call anything in the 2004 race "unfair," but added that he finds many of Farrell's campaign positions "irrelevant."
Farrell, for her part, called the 2004 campaign relatively clean. In fact, she said, the two candidates engaged in "an exemplary debate."
"Chris will complain that we attacked and distorted his record, but Chris just doesn't like to be challenged," Farrell said in an interview in Washington.
In many districts the 2006 elections could largely be a referendum on President Bush and the war in Iraq. Republican incumbents will be portrayed as strong supporters of President George Bush and his agenda. With the president's approval ratings at an all-time low, this strategy could be successful for Democrats.
The nation's political tide is changing and a Democratic wave has been building among the populace, according to some political experts.
To Gonzales, the question is not whether there will be a Democratic wave but "how big it is going to be."
The wave, "doesn't have to be very high for Chris Shays to lose." In fact, he said, Shays "will be in the first crop of Republican incumbents to lose if there is a wave."
Greenberg said of the congressional contest: "I don't think it's up to Diane or Chris. It's mostly up to what happens with Bush."
Shays said he continues to support U.S. efforts in Iraq because he believes that is the right thing to do. "I just know that I do the best job I can do and then I live with the consequences," Shays said. "Obviously, I don't want to lose a race, but I want to do my job."
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Massachusetts Health Care Law Could Spread to Other States
WASHINGTON, April 18- The new Massachusetts health care law could set a precedent for reform in states across the country, a panel of policy makers said Tuesday.
Ron Pollack, executive director and vice president of Families USA, a nonpartisan health care policy organization, said states across the country are "frustrated with the gridlock" in Congress over comprehensive health reform.
"So many states are feeling they cannot wait when they've got so many people who are suffering because increasing numbers of people are uninsured," Pollack said during a panel discussion sponsored by Families USA at the National Press Club. "Here the steps at the federal level, if anything, are exacerbating the problem."
The Massachusetts law, Pollack said, will be reviewed by other states as a model on how to approach health care legislation.
"Make no mistake about it, this legislation should be widely acclaimed as a breakthrough," he said.
The Massachusetts law requires every resident who lacks coverage to buy health insurance.
States that want to institute similar reforms should look at what was done in Massachusetts "less as a policy blueprint and more as a political blueprint," said John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, an organization that advocates for universal health care.
"One of the lessons we learned from other states such as Maine is that voluntary doesn't get you where you want to go," McDonough said. "If you really want to achieve a dramatic breakthrough in expansion of coverage, you have to be willing to take the political heat and political risk."
A Massachusetts legislative conference committee report found that an estimated 550,000 people in the state are without health insurance. Salvatore F. DiMasi, D-Third Suffolk, the speaker of the Massachusetts House and one of the Press Club panelists, said he risked ending his political career to pass the health care bill.
"We had to make sure that people were taken care of in a way that they wouldn't have to worry about their health insurance," DiMasi said. "They wouldn't have to have the anxiety of knowing whether they would be taken care of if they did get sick or if their children got sick."
Everyone - both liberals and conservatives - was involved in some aspect of the law's passage, DiMasi said.
"Whether you're an individual, employer, whether you're state or federal government, a provider or an insurer, everyone must participate in this legislation," he said. "That's the reason this legislation has a chance at being successful."
The new law, however, may not be applicable to all states. According to McDonough, a larger state such as Texas, in which close to a fourth of its adult population is without health insurance, would have a more difficult time writing a bill like the Massachusetts law. The new law does not require a tax increase because the state can support the program through its budget surplus.
In 1974, Hawaii passed a law requiring every business with more than 10 workers to offer health coverage to their employees.
Some Massachusetts businesses during the past 16 months have worried about the implications of becoming responsible under state law for their employees' health insurance, said panelist Philip J. Edmundson, chief executive officer of William Gallagher Associates, an insurance brokerage firm based in Boston.
"Most businesses find that government telling them they have to do still another thing to be a different kind of revolution," Edmundson said. "Entrepreneurs and business leaders don't tend to find that to be a good way to start a debate about health care."
However, he said, the new law presents a "great opportunity to educate people in the business community."
In the past, companies have had mixed feelings when various laws such as the minimum wage and Social Security went on the books, Edmundson said. Once businesses find their role in the process they want "to become engaged," he said, and in Massachusetts they helped to shape the legislation.
John Holahan, director of health policy at the Urban Institute, an economic research organization, said the Massachusetts law "provides a structure to get to universal health care."
Although the law won't take effect until next summer, DiMasi said that if the legislation needs to be changed "to reflect unintended consequences," the legislature will act to fix it.
"It's only the beginning of health care reform," he said. "The implementation is where the success will be."
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Michaud’s Bill to Aid Economic Development
WASHINGTON, April 13 - Rep. Michael Michaud (D-2 nd ) is trying to get millions of dollars for economic development in Maine with his bill to create a Northeast Regional Development Commission.
"The Northeast Regional Development Commission will invest in economically distressed communities," Michaud said in a statement Wednesday. "It will create and implement regional economic development plans to reduce poverty, address changing land use and improve the quality of life for residents."
Michaud added that the commission, which would fund projects that stimulate economic development, would work with and not replace existing federal, state and local economic development programs.
"These commissions have been around since 1965 except for the Northeast," Michaud said in an interview. "And they funnel $40 million a year on an ongoing basis for economic development purposes."
Maine is poised to receive up to 40 percent of the commission's funding, which would be the state's fair share, according to a county-based funding-formula, Michaud said.
Rep. Tom Allen (D-1 st ) is a co-sponsor of Michaud's legislation. The bill, he said, would help to foster economic development by bringing state and federal government together with business and non-profit groups.
"I am proud to be working with Mike Michaud in support of his bill to create a Northeast Regional Economic Development Commission," Allen said in a statement. "We need to do everything we can to bring more focus, more resources and more attention to the need for economic development in Maine and throughout Northern New England."
Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) plan on introducing similar legislation and are working on its wording and getting more support for the bill, according to press persons in each office.
"Communities in the Northern Forest Region share common transportation, environmental and economic development challenges," Snowe said in a statement. "The bill I plan to introduce will recognize these unique needs and set up a commission that can work across borders to overcome problems that we all face. By combining our efforts and formulating a common strategy, we can more efficiently leverage existing resources to get the job done."
Collins agreed, saying in a statement, "Regional commissions such as this are proven to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life in distressed areas."
A similar commission has existed since 1965 in Appalachia, an area that stretches over 13 states, and has helped cut poverty in the region in half since it was established. The Appalachian Regional Commission has also created 26,000 jobs and cut the number of economically distressed counties in the region from 219 to 100.
Over the past decade Congress has established three other commissions and has proposed two more.
"When I came to Congress and saw other regions coming together to address their economic development in a way that was modeled after the successful ARC [Appalachian Regional Commission]," Michaud said in a statement, "I thought that it was something that Maine should have and that our region could share."
Michaud's bill was introduced last year and is going before committee in May or June, according to Michaud.
The legislation says that while the northeastern border region, which extends from Maine through New Hampshire and Vermont and into upstate New York, is rich in natural resources, it lags behind other parts of the country in economic development.
Losses in manufacturing jobs and people leaving the area have drained the area's economy, according to the bill. Federal assistance in the form of grants would greatly help the region while preserving existing industries, the bill says.
The commission would be made up of a federal commissioner appointed by the president and the governors of all the states that decide to participate. The federal commissioner and a majority of the governors would need to agree on specific grants before the money could be disbursed.
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