A CASE OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST
THE LOBBYIST ARE GETTING THEIR MONEYS WORTH.
THE WATCHMAN -
We are not going to sugar coat anything here. We all know that politics is a dirty business. We all like to think that when we donate to the campaign of any politician that he cannot be bought by special interest groups. Sadly, that is often not the case. Many elected officials have their campaigns financed by those special interest groups with the idea of influencing the vote of the elected official. Far too many times they are successful.
What brought our attention to this subject was this article to the editor of the on-line news publication SoonerPolitics.org. The individual raised some very valid questions that needed to be investigated. So we did.
The very first thing we did was find the definition of what a conflict of interest is. Wikipedia has a definition that covers several areas. You can read their entire definition by opening this link. The area we found to be most appropriate in this situation stated, and we’ll quote “The presence of conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of inappropriateness. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs. A conflict of interest exist if the circumstances are reasonably believed (on the basis of past experience and objective evidence) to create a risk that a decision may be unduly influenced by other, secondary interest, and not whether a particular individual is actually influenced by a secondary interest.”
The individual we are talking about is State Senator Greg McCortney (R), Ada. He is currently serving the last year of his first term as Senator. We started by going to his official biography page located here. There wasn’t a lot of information here, which is typical of those in the Senate, but there was enough there to answer a few questions we had.
What we found was that he is not a chair of any committee, or he at least is not listed as such. Where the conflict of interest arises is in his position of being a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services and as the Vice-Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee. Where the conflict arises is in his business. It seems that Senator McCortney runs an in-home care business as you can see here.
Now please don’t get the idea that he is treating patients himself. We found no evidence to say that he was. However, being in a business that does profit by treating the ills that others have, he does stand to make a profit from any legislation that becomes law coming out of those two committees.
In seeking out additional information on Senator McCortney we went to www.votesmart.org. We started by looking at his biography page which you can find at this link. There was really no additional information available that we didn’t already have.
We next went to the voting section located here. His record is indicative of every Social Justice Warrior. Instead of doing the right thing and addressing a problem that has existed for decades, they take the easy way out and punish the law-abiding citizens by putting criminals back on the streets sooner. Why does the legislative body continue to ignore the problem?
We next went to the political courage test. It would appear that he has none. You can see his answers to this questionnaire at this link. As you can see, he failed to respond to any of the questions. This allows him to tailor his response to the audience he is speaking to at the time. In other words he has a fixed position on a subject he just doesn’t want those who vote for him to know what it is.
We next went to the candidate evaluations page found here. Listed below is a partial example of what we found.
Business and Consumer
2017-2018 National Federation of Independent Business 100%
2018 Research Institute for Economic Development 95%
We highlighted these numbers for a reason. These numbers mean that he is pro-business which means that the consumer id going to pay more out of pocket for everything they may purchase.
Conservative
2017 American Conservative Union 54%
2017 Oklahoma Conservative PAC 47%
2018 The Oklahoma Constitution 60%
Fiscally Conservative
2017 American Conservative Union 54%
2017 Sooner Tea Party 5%
Guns
2016 National Rifle Association 64%
2017 Oklahoma Second Amendment Association 15%
As you can tell from the ratings, Senator McCortney is no Conservative at all. He would feel right at home in the Democratic Party.
We next looked at the campaign finance section of the report. Now there is no denying the fact that there are numerous individual donors to the Senators campaign, but there is also no denying that there are numerous special interest groups who donated to his campaign. You can see that report at this link. We took it a step further.
Be cause of the serious possibility of a conflict of interest being suspected, we went to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission at this link to see what was available. The first item that we noted was that the Senator followed what is becoming a common practice among politicians by not closing his 2016 campaign financials until October 12, 2018. He did make the required reports and yes there are numerous special interest groups listed on the reports for which he sits on committees that make decisions about. They also affect his private business.
We also found that he opened his run for re-election in January of 2019. He has complied with the reporting requirements and once again there are numerous individual donors to his campaign. Once again there are also numerous special interest groups for which he holds sway over the committees involved with decisions that affect them as well as his private business. We have listed a few from the first quarter below.
Jan 17, 2019 Affiliated Anesthesiologist PAC Edmond, Ok $1,000.00Jan 17, 2019 American Assoc. of Nurse Anesthetists Washington, D.C. $2,000.00Jan 17, 2019 Health Care Service Corporation Emp. Pac OKC, Ok $1,000.00Jan 17, 2019 Oklahoma Osteopathic PAC OKC, Ok $500.00
Feb 01, 2019 Oklahoma Dental Hygienist’s Assoc. PAC Tulsa, Ok $200.00
His campaign reports from his 2016 campaign are riddled with special interest groups, a majority of which are related to the health industry. It holds true in his 2020 campaign as well. There is enough circumstantial evidence available here that indicates that Senator McCortney should never sit on any committee that deals with health-related issues. If asked, he can give his advice, but never should he be a member of the committee.
We must ask is Senator McCortney the only one to blame for this conflict of interest. The answer is no. Senator McCortney is primarily to blame. One would think that he would have enough decency to recuse himself on votes in these committees, but he has failed to do so. But he is not the one who made the committee assignments. Senate President Pro-tem Senator Greg Treat made the assignments and is also responsible for creating the opportunity for this very apparent conflict of interest to exist. This needs to be ended immediately.
When the health and welfare of loved ones are at stake is no time to have someone trying to line his pockets at the expense of those that are sick and injured. We would recommend that Senator McCortney be relieved of his duties within the committees listed in this report. We further recommend that in the future the President pro-tem of the Senate pay closer attention to the civilian related jobs individuals do before assigning them to committees in order to decrease the possibility of the slightest hint of a conflict of interest.
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