Posted on 09/13/2002 7:54:55 PM PDT by GailA
http://www.newschannel5.com/news/investigates/index.html
NewsChannel 5 Investigates: Friends in High Places FBI-TBI Open Criminal Investigation (Original Date: Sept. 12, 2002.) View video of this story
There's been a major development in our investigation of insider contracts within the Sundquist administration.
NewsChannel 5 has learned those contracts are now the subject of a joint federal and state criminal investigation.
Sources say the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have formed a joint task force to try to determine whether any laws were broken.
As NewsChannel 5 first reported, some close friends of the governor have raked in millions of dollars in state government contracts.
Among them: an exclusive contract handed to a Chattanooga company, Workforce Strategists, that had only existed on paper for six days.
This week, we revealed how a member of the governor's Cabinet -- Alex Fischer -- had a financial stake in a company that got all its money from TennCare.
The FBI-TBI investigation is in its earlier stages. Agents have already started conducting interviews with potential witnesses.
The governor's press secretary said she didn't know anything about the FBI-TBI investigation -- and didn't have any comment.
On Thursday, Sundquist told the Associated Press that the questions raised in the NewsChannel 5 investigation are "a lot of baloney" and that no laws have been broken.
Ex-Sundquist aide tied to TennCare-linked firm By The Associated Press September 13, 2002
NASHVILLE - During much of Alex Fischer's tenure with Gov. Don Sundquist's administration, he had a stake in a company that got all its revenue from TennCare, the state's health insurance program.
That might have violated state policy, according to a report this week by WTVF-TV.
The policy reportedly prohibits TennCare providers from paying money "directly or indirectly to any officer or employee of the state of Tennessee as wages, compensation or gifts in exchange for acting as officer, agent, employee, subcontractor or consultant to the contractor in connection with any work contemplated or performed relative to this contract unless otherwise authorized by the commissioner, TDFA (Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration)."
Fischer said Thursday that he doesn't know anything about such a policy but that he went "way above and beyond" the requirements of state law to disclose his investments after joining the administration in 1997 as deputy commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development.
Fischer, who was named ECD commissioner in December 2000, said he divested himself of all interest in Comprehensive Community Care, a TennCare mental health services subcontractor, before becoming Sundquist's chief of staff in September 2001. Fischer left the administration last month for a job at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Sundquist said Thursday his former aide did nothing wrong and called WTVF's recent stories about his friends benefiting from their ties to his administration "a lot of baloney."
"These people have been looking for months and there's nothing there. They haven't found anything, and I don't think there's anything to be found," Sundquist said.
The stories have focused primarily on state contracts among companies affiliated with Monteagle insurance agent John Stamps and Nashville businessman Al Ganier, both of whom have known Sundquist for decades.
The governor's office told WTVF his friendship with Ganier and Stamps "was not a factor in the contract decisions. ... The governor's policy has been to treat every contractor - friend, foe or stranger - equally."
Earlier this year, Ganier's Educational Networks of America got a five-year contract worth more than $100 million to provide Internet service to Tennessee schools. WTVF said it was not the low bidder; Ganier said Thursday it was.
The company had previously held a three-year, $74 million contract to provide service, and Ganier also got the original $128,000 contract to connect all Tennessee schools to the Internet.
Ganier said his friendship with Sundquist may have hurt his company more than it helped. "The fact is that we are one of the most scrutinized companies in the state," he said by phone from Washington, D.C.
Most of a $3 million federal grant to provide online training for teachers in rural areas will go to ENA, WTVF said.
U.S. Senate candidate Lamar Alexander is a paid consultant and member of the board for ENA. However, WTVF said it found no evidence that Alexander, a Republican former Tennessee governor and U.S. education secretary, used his influence on behalf of the company.
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/politics/article/0,1406,KNS_356_1413852,00.html
Anti-Gore group reforms to oppose Democrat Sands in state Senate race By Tom Humphrey, News-Sentinel Nashville bureau September 13, 2002
The Tennessee Forum, a political organization that was devoted to criticizing Al Gore in 2000, has made Democratic state Senate candidate Bobby Sands its first 2002 target in a quacking attack.
The group will be spending "in the neighborhood" of $60,000 to $70,000 on radio and newspaper ads criticizing Sands, said Susan Kaestner, a Brentwood mother of two who serves on the Forum board of directors.
That is far more than combined total raised by both Sands and his Republican opponent, Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro. On their most recent financial disclosures, Sands reported raising $27,910 versus $14,370 for Ketron, including $7,500 the Republican gave his own campaign.
It is also apparently the largest "independent expenditure" ever made by an officially non-partisan organization in a race for the state Legislature.
Phil Schoggen, chairman of Common Cause in Tennessee, said he was "taken aback" by such an effort. Common Cause is a self-described public interest lobby that promotes campaign finance reform.
So far, Sands, a state representative from Columbia seeking the newly-created District 13 state Senate seat, is the only target. But Kaestner said the group is "looking at some other races where we could get involved."
She declined to name them, but indicated they would likely be legislative races - though she wouldn't rule out the governor's race.
The ads against Sands depict him as recipient a "Golden Duck award" for "his performance in the state budget crisis."
Sands voted for a state income tax plan sponsored by House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh this year, but against the $933 million tax increase package - including a boost in the sales tax - that ultimately passed.
Kaestner said the Forum leadership has changed since 2000, when it was set up with the goal of spending $500,000 on ads attacking Gore in his home state.
Currently, she said the Forum is "a small group of citizens who became irritated and irate enough and realized we can come in and make some statements and inform other citizens" about "irresponsible government and waste" in Tennessee.
The group is set up as an independent political organization under federal law and must file reports on the contributions it receives and the expenditures it makes with the Internal Revenue Service. The reports are posted on the IRS website.
Such groups, however, are not required to file reports with the state Registry of Election Finance, said Drew Rawlins, director of the Registry, because under relevant laws they are deemed to be providing information through "independent expenditures" rather than urging citizens to vote one way or the other.
Chad Thompson, political director for the Senate Democratic Caucus, said the group is also taking direct corporate contributions that are prohibited by state law. The federal law on independent political organizations provides "a loophole they are exploiting to get around state law," he said.
The Tennessee Roadbuilders Association is running a list of "friends" and "foes" among state representatives in the current issue of its monthly magazine.
The article by Kent Starwalt, executive director of the group, lists legislators on the basis of how they voted on three proposals to shift funds from the state roadbuilding program to other areas of government.
Thirty-nine of the 99 House members voted on all three occasions against what Starwalt characterized as a "raid on the road fund." Roadbuilders opposed such a raid, which proponents depicted as a way to avoid higher taxes. Twenty-three of the 39 were Republicans.
Among those voting with the roadbuilders all three times were Knoxville Republican Reps. H.E. Bittle, Jim Boyer and Steve Buttry. Other area legislators in the group included Reps. William Baird, R-Jacksboro; Ronnie Davis, R-Newport; Dennis Ferguson, D-Kingston; Ken Givens, D-Rogersville; Bob McKee, R-Athens; Richard Montgomery, R-Seymour; and Raymond Walker, R-Crossville.
Only 11 legislators voted against the roadbuilders all three times. Only one of those, Rep. Chris Clem, R-Lookout Mountain, was a Republican. Except for Clem and Rep. Tommie Brown, D-Chattanooga, none represent East Tennessee districts.
However, Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, was among another 11 representatives who voted twice to shift roadbuilding funds but did not vote either way on a third occasion. Also among that group was Rep. Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, who is also chairman of the state Republican party.
Another category was legislators who voted with the roadbuilders - or against the raid - on two occasions but did not vote on the third occasion. Among that group were Rep. Joe Armstrong, D-Knoxville; Jamie Hagood, R-Knoxville; Joe McCord, R-Maryville, Doug Overby, R-Maryville; Dennis Roach, R-Rutledge; and Harry Tindell, D-Knoxville.
The article in Tennessee Roadbuilder magazine appears under the headline, "Who really are our friends, foes in Nashville?"
The roadbuilders maintain a political action committee that is among the top donors to legislative campaigns in the state. Starwalt stated the obvious in an interview:
"We will help those who support us. We will not help those who do not support us."
Tom Humphrey may be reached at 615-242-7782 or humphrey@edge.net
Gov. Sundquist's actions on prison construction criticized
the oak ridger
NASHVILLE (AP) -- Gov. Don Sundquist's administration is creating a "back door" to advance prison privatization with its delays of prison construction, the chairman of the legislature's Corrections Oversight Committee said.
"We all knew we would have to have more beds," said Rep. Philip Pinion, D-Union City. "We have done everything short of threatening to subpoena the governor and bring him in here."
Pinion made the comments Wednesday during day two of hearings on Sundquist's 10-year, $282 million prison plan. On Tuesday, the committee delayed action on the proposal until next month.
The plan calls for construction of a 2,316-bed prison in West Tennessee, and paying Hardeman County to house an additional 1,536 prisoners at the site the county leases from Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America.
Pinion noted that the Legislature allocated money for a new prison in 1996, but the Sundquist administration only recently selected a site.
"This looks to me like the back door to privatization. I think the administration purposely held off in (locating) a new facility in order that they might help do what they couldn't do four years ago," Pinion said.
"We are in a position now where we don't have a choice. We couldn't build a facility fast enough to get the beds we need."
The administration is projecting a need of 1,337 prison beds next year and 6,031 beds by 2011. Sundquist was an early backer of prison privatization, but backed off of the plan in 1998 after months of negotiations and bad publicity for CCA over stabbings, escapes and high turnover problems at an Ohio prison run by the company.
After the hearing, Todd Cruse, who serves on the governor's staff, said the administration picked a site as soon as it could.
"It is very difficult to site a prison," Cruse said. "At one time we thought Carroll County was an excellent place to go and people said no.
"He (Pinion) believes this is a back door to privatization and I would say absolutely not. This is to take care of a need we have right now. If we could have sited a prison by now we would have."
Sen. Thelma Harper, D-Nashville, said it appears there is a rush to get the Hardeman County proposal approved.
"I frown on the way it is being handled," she said. "I think there is an agenda we don't know about."
Whenever I hear a politician say "no laws have been broken", my mind immediately translates that into "I acted in a way that was so unethical and egregious that no one could have possibly foreseen the need for a law against the behavior I engaged in."
LOL! Good one!
The other thing that comes to mind, is "Here's another politician who knows the voters expect nothing better in the way of ethics than 'won't break the law'". We voters should DEMAND better!
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