Didjs ever notice that this slides off Liberals much easier than conservatives? I think it is due to the Republicans being known as "the party of Business."
AP Exclusive: While governor, Dean accepted speaking fees, gifts from special interests
JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, January 10, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
(01-10) 00:02 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
Just months before he signed a state tax break for insurers in 1993, then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean met with executives from two companies that might benefit.
Then Dean received a gift from the companies' lobbyist, followed by more than $60,000 in donations over the next two years to one of Dean's own charity funds.
The relationship between Dean and the nontraditional insurance industry is detailed in a series of letters obtained by The Associated Press in which both sides discussed official state business and private financial matters in the same correspondence.
"We greatly appreciate the flexibility your administration and its predecessors have promoted in the regulation of insurance company," one of the companies wrote Dean in 1995. A few sentences later, the company announced it was donating more money to his charity.
"In addition to a contribution in 1994, I am pleased to inform you that we have just forwarded a second contribution in the amount of $25,000 to assist with the project's important work."
Tax records the campaign volunteered to the AP also show that as governor, Dean took more than $13,000 in personal pay from four special interests to give speeches, much of it from a drug company involved in a major sexual harassment case.
Dean's speech fees and charitable donations were permitted under Vermont law and did not have to be disclosed at the time.
Dean's campaign said Friday it was "laughable" to suggest that the donations and gift from the insurers or the speaking fees had any impact on his decisions as governor.
"Anyone who knows Howard Dean knows he's a straight-shooter who calls them as he sees them and nothing, aside from his interest in the best public policy, ever influenced his decisions as governor," spokesman Jay Carson said.
But an ethics expert said the revelations risk tarnishing Dean's self-portrait as a political outsider.
"This is the same kind of thing that goes on in Washington, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity. "It's not something you would expect the reformer, outsider candidate would have in his background."
Many of Dean's former gubernatorial colleagues, including his successor in Vermont, said they don't accept special-interest speaking fees to avoid appearances or because of legal prohibitions.
Vermont Republican Gov. James Douglas, Dean's successor, hasn't accepted any honoraria in his first year and believes it "unlikely that he would accept honoraria to speak on a subject clearly related to his duties as governor," spokesman Jason Gibbs said.
Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said, "We choose not to accept anything of value."
The checks and pledges totaling at least $62,500 to Dean's Vermont Computer Project, an initiative the governor created to donate equipment to Vermont schools, came from captive insurance and reinsurance companies, nontraditional insurers that provide health care coverage to companies in tax-friendly ways.
The money was delivered to Dean and his aides in the mid-1990s by a lobbyist for the insurers. In one letter on his official stationery, Dean wrote lobbyist John L. Primmer to tell him about the status of a state tax break for the industry and to simultaneously thank him for a personal gift.
"Both of these bills have the potential to help further opportunities in this area and bring high quality, economically beneficial jobs to Vermont," Dean wrote on April 27, 1993, to Primmer, whose clients over the years included a coalition for reinsurers and the Vermont Captive Insurance Association.
"Thanks for the gift and your support. Please be in touch with further questions or comments," the then-governor added.
Dean's campaign said the governor does not recall what gift was referenced in the letter but said it could have been a token gift or one of several donations or checks Primmer collected to Dean's charity fund.
Primmer did not return calls to his office seeking comment Thursday or Friday.
In a 1993 letter to Dean, Primmer wrote that two insurers were sending a gift to the governor, described only as a "package," after Dean met with them to discuss the bill that would provide new tax breaks. Dean signed the bill into law later that year.
Primmer donated $250 to Dean's re-election campaign in 1994. And in a series of 1995 letters, Primmer provided a $7,500 check to Dean's school fund from insurer Commercial Reinsurance Company, and pledges for an additional $55,000 from that company and an insurer named MEDMARC.
When asked whether the mixed discussions of official business and private donations in the letters might create a perception of a conflict of interest, Dean spokesman Carson replied, "As Governor he started a charity that provided hundreds of computers to the poorest kids in the state and he's not going to make any apologies for that."
Dean's speaking fees weren't itemized in his 1998 and 1999 tax forms that the presidential hopeful voluntarily released, but he provided the names of those who paid him at the request of the AP.
The largest sum of speaking fees -- $9,000 -- was paid to Dean for two speeches he made in spring 1998 and spring 1999 to Astra USA, now known as AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical giant that makes the popular ulcer drug Prilosec.
At the time Dean made his 1998 speech, Astra, which was based in Massachusetts, had just settled a sexual harassment case with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after admitting to a hostile work environment. The company agreed to pay nearly $10 million to more than 70 victims.
Dean was paid $4,000 for the 1998 speech. He received $5,000 more in 1999 to speak again to Astra, according to the information Dean provided to the AP.
Dean canceled a third speech just before the 1998 election when reporters inquired about the propriety of speaking at a company involved in the harassment case.
The new information shows Dean also received speaking fees in 1998 of $1,000 each from the University of Texas Science Center and the American Academy of Pediatrics, plus $2,633 from the University of Arizona Foundation.
In all, Dean earned $13,633 in speaking fees while governor and another $5,000 after stepping down. The totals are far smaller than the $1 million-plus that rival Wesley Clark earned in speaking and consulting fees after retiring from the military.
Associated Press Writers Ross Sneyd in Montpelier, Vt., and Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report.
©2004 Associated Press
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