Wellstone campaign aides weren't covered by worker's comp insurance

Star Tribune ^ | Feb. 1, 2003 | Greg Gordon

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The late Sen. Paul Wellstone's reelection campaign disclosed Friday that it had failed to buy worker's compensation insurance, but the state came to the rescue for the survivors of four aides killed in last October's plane crash.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Rules are for the little people.

[Clara Lou]

Why, this boggles the mind! The great liberal Paul Wellstone neglected to provide for his personnel as he should have? It cannot be. And now the state of Minnesota is left to pick up the tab for his neglect? That, at least, is par for the course for liberals-- the nanny state takes care of everything.

[cactusSharp]

and this liberal POS was a law maker...certainly he knew insurwance is a must, good ole socialist Minnesota
know the biggest angst w/ Minnesota.....VIKINGS

I thought Vikings were big, no BS, honest, huge
and accountable...not one world socialist abortion on demand punks as they have become

[blackdog]

I think we should all go work for our local democrat candidates in some petty envelope licking position. We should then slip and fall, filing a workers comp claim. Do this in every democrat campaign around.

[Kay Soze]

"State law requires employers to buy worker's compensation insurance as a safety net in the event workers are injured or killed while on the job. Laws are for people lacking ethics and morals. Wellstone and democrats need lots of laws. But they still don’t care about people. Of course they won't follow them. Democrat-progressive- liberal Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. Rich worked with Augusto Pinochet and used slave labor in copper mines. Rich was not willing to pay the taxes which pay for the welfare programs Democrats-progressives-liberals use to buy votes.

[Hawkeye's Girl]

The DFL no longer us.

Senator Coleman, Governor Pawlenty, and the rest of the MN GOP are the present and the future of this state.

[Hawkeye's Girl]

The DFL no longer owns us.

Senator Coleman, Governor Pawlenty, and the rest of the MN GOP are the present and the future of this state.

[Jambe]

Title should have read:

"Democratic employer broke the law, employees killed - TAXpayers stuck with the bill"

[Slyfox]

A democrap doing something remotely homorable? What a concept.

[Slainte]

Just imagine the outcry we'd be hearing from the professional activists if the tales were turned and it had been a Republican candidate that failed to provide th mandated coverage...

[Slyfox]

honorable

[Tall_Texan]

Why should he bother buying the insurance when he probably knew the state would cover for him? The difference of not having to pay premiums probably allowed him to run one more attack ad in Duluth.

[cactusSharp]

EXACTLY

[WorkingClassFilth]

Oh, they're covered all right. One of Comrade Paul's gifts to us was Minn-Care. All ya' gotta do is go and say you're impoverished and you can have better health care than I can afford to have.

[holyscroller]

"The most generous benefits will go to the family of Markuson, who had one child from a previous marriage and three stepchildren after remarrying two years ago. The law is expected to provide her husband with a $60,000 death benefit and a percentage of her weekly compensation that increases for each child. The compensation is paid until the children are no longer dependents."

Even in death, his family gets the biggest piece of the pie. Markuson was Wellstone's daughter. Why else should she get the most generous benefits?

[Cicero]

To be fair, maybe she had the most kids.

But it's astonishing how many of these people pass all sorts of burdensome tax and paperwork regulations and then fail to follow their own regulations.

As I recall several of clinton's first nominations for high office were people who failed to pay taxes on their own employees (social security, unemployment insurance, etc., etc.). Having been through that process myself, filling out something like 17 different forms every year for someone who worked for us partime in Maine, and invariably getting letters from bureaucrats demanding more money, it really blew my mind that the very people who wrote these laws then preceded to flout them.

[JohnBovenmyer]

State law requires employers to buy worker's compensation insurance as a safety net in the event workers are injured or killed while on the job. But election campaigns are believed to widely overlook the requirement.

Minnesota should use this to make an example. Survey all their election campaigns and fine those that didn't follow this law. Make an example so that law abiding employers' contributions don't have to foot the bill for the ethically challenged. Including in cases where the guilty parties--I presume Sen. Wellstone was responsible for the actions and oversights of his campaign--become their own victims. Also look to see if the DFL and the DNC could be fined for this criminal oversight. They probably can't but if you lay enough guilt on them they might make significant donations for the state fund.

Also Sen. Coleman should make a press release expressing his sadness that the families of this tragedy have had to undergo further trauma and sadness that the taxpayers had to come to their rescue. He should append proof that his campaign was insured. His state party should double check its procedures and survey its recent candidates for compliance with this law and report the results, good or bad, to the media.

[cibco]

BTTT

[Contra]

"I think we should all go work for our local democrat candidates in some petty envelope licking position. We should then slip and fall, filing a workers comp claim. Do this in every democrat campaign around."

This is not a bad idea. And then when the Democrat lawyers go to court trying to fight an award or trying to "limit" it (as Republicans favor) then you can go to the media and say what hypocrites Democrats are and try to get John Edwards to represent you.

[aristeides]

But aides discovered in November that they had "inadvertently failed to complete the application process" for worker's compensation insurance, the statement said.

Inadvertently? And I suppose it was also inadvertent that the money that should have gone for this instead went to pay for campaign expenses.