PAY TO PLAY: Oklahoma Insurance Company Funnels Money to Chairmen of Task Force on Workers’ Comp
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Okie Pundit is still receiving new information, but this is what we know at this time about contributions made to Representative Dan Sullivan, Assistant Majority Floor Leader, and Senator Cliff Aldridge.
Two Republican legislators accepted a total of $24,000 in campaign contributions over a period of three days in September from an insurance company that stands to gain financially from recommendations made by a task force that studied the possible privatization of Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system. The Task force on Privatization of CompSource Oklahoma was studying whether to mutualize CompSource or sell it off to a private company.
Representative Dan Sullivan and Senator Cliff Aldridge, the two chairmen of the task force, each accepted $12,000 from the National American Insurance Company (NAICO) while the task force met. Though initially Sullivan and Aldridge ostensibly claimed they could not say whether mutualization or privatization was the best course, by the end of the task force meetings in December both were big proponents of selling the system to a private company. In fact, Sullivan recently filed House Bill 2662, legislation that would require the state to sell CompSource by December 31, 2011.
And suddenly NAICO has emerged as the leading candidate in the politically-charged battle to purchase CompSource. Read more…
