| Today's Feature Joplin Dentist
pleads guilty to 13 counts
of Medicaid
fraud.
Attorney General Chris Koster
says that Samuel A. Miller, a Joplin dentist, has
pleaded guilty to 13 counts of submitting false
reimbursement claims to Missouri’s Medicaid
program for services not performed. Koster
represented the State of Missouri in
yesterday’s court proceeding alongside
Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney Dean
Dankelson.
Koster said Miller, who works
primarily with pediatric patients, received
nearly $13,500 from Medicaid for false claims he
submitted. He said the fraudulent billing was for
procedures such as x-rays, root canals, and
resin-based composite restorations.
Koster said Miller came under
investigation as a result of a hotline tip to the
Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control
Unit. He said the unit subpoenaed Miller’s
records, and Miller held back records and even
cut off portions of the records to conceal that
work had not been performed. Koster said citizens
should report suspected Medicaid fraud to
800-286-3932.
Leadership
PACs: Let the Good Times Roll
by Marcus Stern and Jennifer
LaFleur, ProPublica
When it comes to golf, Sen.
Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has champagne taste.
In California, he’s putted
with his back to the thundering surf near the
seventh hole at Pebble Beach, where a round of
golf costs $495. In Florida, he’s driven the
ball down the fairways of the Boca Raton Resort,
with its signature island green on the 18th hole
and its Waldorf Astoria interior.
These are among the dozen
premier resorts where Chambliss played golf in
2007 and 2008 at a cost of a quarter of a million
dollars. Yet Chambliss is hardly rich. His net
worth is between $181,006 and $415,000, according
to his 2007 financial disclosure report, ranking
him 89th in the Senate in terms of wealth.
Fortunately for Chambliss, a
political fund covers the costs of his golf
hobby. The fund received $692,618 during the 2008
election cycle, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics. Almost all of it came from
lobbyists, political action committees (PACs) and
corporate leaders.
The public might be forgiven
for thinking the days are gone when lobbyists and
special interests could pay for a lawmaker’s
cross-country golf outings. After all, both the
House and Senate in 2007 responded to a spate of
scandals by banning members of Congress from
accepting gifts of any value from lobbyists or
the companies that hire them.
But those reforms preserved a
major loophole: leadership PACs like
Chambliss’ Republican Majority Fund, which
have far looser rules and get far less scrutiny
than campaign committees. At first, only a few
rising stars in Congress had them. Now, 70
percent of the members do. So do a dozen former
members.
In the past three election
cycles, lobbyists and special interests poured
$355 million into these funds, making them the
second-largest source of political money for
sitting members of Congress.
Legally, lawmakers are free to
spend the leadership PAC money pretty much as
they wish.
Lobbyists and lawmakers can --
and do -- use it to travel together to play golf
at Pebble Beach, ride snowmobiles in
Montana’s Big Sky Country and go deep-sea
fishing in the Florida Keys. The lobbyists
don’t pay the costs directly. They
contribute to the leadership PAC, which then pays
the lawmaker’s resort and travel bills.
Leadership PACs have grown
steadily since they began cropping up in the
1970s. What separates them from campaign
committees is that lawmakers are supposed to pass
along the bulk of the money to other members of
their party for their campaigns. That way,
lawmakers with leadership PACs can earn their
beneficiaries’ support when it comes time to
divvy up committee chairmanships and other party
leadership posts.
This system helps party leaders
spread money to candidates with less money or
tighter races. On the other hand, it also fuels
the Washington money chase, allocates power in
Congress based on fundraising prowess, and
encourages lawmakers and lobbyists to mingle
socially and recreationally as political money
changes hands.
Of the $112 million that
leadership PACs spent during the two-year
campaign cycle that led up to the 2008 elections,
less than half was passed on to candidates or
party committees, according to a ProPublica
analysis of Federal Election Commission data
compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The rest paid for entertainment, administrative
costs, fundraising and other categories that are
so vague that it’s impossible to know for
sure how the money was spent.
"Some of the expenditures
don’t seem related to elections and
politics," said Michael Malbin, executive
director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a
research center associated with George Washington
University.
Indeed, funds have been used
for visits to Churchill Downs, Disney World and
the Country Music Hall of Fame. They’ve paid
for funerals, flowers and farewell parties. Rep.
Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., used $64,500 from his PAC
to commission a portrait of himself.
All this is legal, even if it
appears to make a mockery of the 2007 ethics
reforms and the contribution limits at the very
heart of the Federal Election Campaign Act of
1971.
The Federal Election Commission
(FEC), which enforces federal campaign finance
laws, has no rule against politicians using the
money for personal purposes. Senate ethics rules
don’t even mention leadership PACs. The
Senate interprets that silence to mean its ethics
committee has no jurisdiction over leadership
PACs whatsoever. The House, on the other hand,
extends the same personal spending rules it
applies to campaign committees to leadership PACs
-- but there are no known instances when the
policy has been enforced.
Meredith McGehee, policy
director at the Campaign Legal Center [8], says
leadership PACs should be abolished.
"But that’s going to
be very difficult because so many members of
Congress have them now," McGehee said.
"Because they’re such useful political
slush funds, money that a politician controls
totally with very few rules governing how
they’re used, it’s very difficult to
find members who want to take that on."
Former FEC Commissioner Brad
Smith, who generally opposes tighter campaign
finance rules, nonetheless favors getting rid of
leadership PACs. He says they give incumbents an
unfair advantage because challengers typically
can’t raise the maximum amount of money
allowed for their campaign committees, much less
for a leadership PAC.
"For the most part,
it’s really kind of an incumbent
racket," said Smith, who’s now a
professor at Capital University Law School in
Columbus, Ohio.
In March, the FEC’s six
commissioners, three Democrats and three
Republicans, sent Congress a list of legislative
recommendations, including one to prohibit
personal use of leadership PAC funds. Their
letter went to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as
president of the Senate. It also was sent to
members of the House and Senate committees that
oversee the FEC.
So far, the FEC has gotten no
response. ProPublica left messages at the offices
of the speaker, the majority leader and the
chairmen of the two committees seeking comment,
but got no replies.
"I am not hearing anything
being done on the legislative front on leadership
PACs," said Craig Holman, the legislative
representative of the consumer advocacy group
Public Citizen.
Party Building or Fun and
Games?
Democrats and Republicans alike
use leadership PAC funds for play.
Among Democrats, Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada used his
leadership PAC to entertain at Las Vegas casinos,
including $32,985 at the Bellagio and $24,284 at
Caesars. Sen. Charles Schumer [11] of New York
paid $32,760 to the New York Yankees and $14,490
to the New York Giants.
Among Republicans, former Sen.
Gordon Smith of Oregon, who was defeated last
fall for re-election, spent $91,004 at the Bandon
Dunes Golf Resort. Former Rep. Thomas Reynolds of
New York spent $66,378 at Pebble Beach.
The FEC disclosure forms that
leadership PACs file are so cursory that
lawmakers don’t have to disclose who
participated or contributed at a PAC fundraiser,
the day the event was held or how much money was
raised.
Chambliss’ leadership PAC
ran up a $50,394 bill at the Ritz-Carlton Naples
on Jan. 25, 2008. The only note of explanation
was the stated purpose, "PAC
EVENT/LODGING/BANQUET/GOLF."
"The problem is that
sometimes it’s hard to tell the personal
from the political," said FEC Commissioner
Ellen Weintraub.
"If a political committee
spends money on food, flowers and tickets to
sporting events, it depends on what they’re
using them for. Those might be legitimate
political expenditures in connection with a
fundraising event. Or, if they used them to take
their family members out to the ball game and
bought flowers for their spouses then that would
be personal use. But you can’t tell from
looking at the expenditure reports."
Former North Carolina senator
and Democratic presidential candidate John
Edwards used his leadership PAC to pay
videographer Rielle Hunter’s firm $114,000
in 2006 and 2007 to make a campaign video. Last
year, he admitted he had an extramarital affair
with Hunter during that period.
More recently, Sen. John
Ensign, R-Nev., admitted to having an
extramarital affair with a woman who was on his
leadership PAC payroll. Cynthia Hampton received
$23,138 from the PAC during the 2008 election
cycle.
Chambliss’ Golf PAC
Only a quarter of the more than
$750,000 that Chambliss’ PAC spent during
the 2008 cycle -- about $200,000 -- went to help
GOP candidates. The rest went for golf, including
payments to resorts and transportation -- a
private jet on one occasion and limos on another.
In July, ABC News cameras captured shots of
Chambliss and other lawmakers golfing at the
five-star Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Chambliss declined to be
interviewed for this story, but his
communications director, Bronwyn Lance-Chester,
said the golf outings were to raise money for his
Republican Majority Fund.
"Leadership PACs are
appropriate vehicles through which members
support deserving candidates in their
campaigns," Lance-Chester wrote in an
e-mail. "Different leadership PACs have
different ways of raising funds. Every
fundraising event Sen. Chambliss has held has
been appropriately conducted, all expenses have
been closely scrutinized and all reporting has
been accurate."
It is hard to determine whether
some of the golf outings generated any donations.
For instance, the leadership PAC made four
payments totaling $10,372 to three luxury West
Coast golf courses and links -- Pebble Beach
Resorts, the Inn at Spanish Bay and Pasatiempo
Golf Club. Lance-Chester said the payments were
for a single fundraising event held Feb. 20,
2008. But no contributions were made to the
leadership PAC that day. During the two-week
period straddling the date, $15,000 came in,
about average for a PAC that collected almost
$700,000 during the election cycle but a low haul
given that the period included a major
fundraising event.
Lance-Chester declined to
disclose who participated or made contributions
in connection with any of the golf events.
"There is not a direct
correlation between contributions and specific
events," she explained. "Contributors
can make a contribution at any time of the year,
either prior to events starting in January or
months afterward and still attend events. ...
Some contributors give that amount and don’t
go to any events. Some go to every event. Some go
to two or three."
Lance-Chester did not explain
how or why Chambliss hosted events at three
different California golf resorts on the same
day. Nor did she explain why he made two deposits
for the event, one to Pebble Beach Resorts 10
months before the event and another to Pasatiempo
Golf Resort two weeks after the event. She also
declined to elaborate on $7,087 paid to the Belle
Haven Golf Shop in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 24,
2007. The PAC’s report to the FEC said only
that it was for "PAC EVENT/GOLF
SUPPLIES."
"All disbursements from
the RMF account are reviewed and approved, and
are made solely for RMF-related purposes,"
Lance-Chester said in another e-mail.
Fred Wertheimer, who has pushed
to reduce the role of money in politics for more
than three decades, said Chambliss could be
running afoul of tax laws.
"If this comes down to
using campaign money for personal use, then he is
required to pay taxes on it," said
Wertheimer.
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