UHCEF Article of Interest

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Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, SEPT. 11, 2006….Pat Walrath and Dick Moore were far apart for much of the end of last year and the beginning of this year, chief negotiators in the Legislature’s painstaking authoring of the new law aimed at bringing health insurance to nearly all Massachusetts residents.

Walrath, a Stow Democrat, pushed the House’s hopes for a broader bill with more coverage and a higher burden on businesses. Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat, carried the Senate plan for a bill passed quickly and with more emphasis on individual contributions.

Now the two chairs of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing are, once again, far apart on paper. In the first eight months of this year, both unopposed in their bids for re-election, Walrath raised less than 5 percent of Moore’s $63,862 haul, according to state campaign finance records.

About half the campaign contributions Moore collected, more than $25,000, sprang from the pockets of health care professionals, lobbyists, and hospital executives, all of whom had large stakes in the oft-tortuous formulation of the health care reform law that Gov. Mitt Romney signed in April.

In sharp contrast, Walrath took in only $2,821 during the first eight months of the year. Of that, $2,250 came from people who identified themselves as optometrists, according to Office of Campaign and Political Finance documents filed in the days leading up to today’s filing deadline.

“I was so busy working on health care I couldn’t have thought about having a fundraiser if I’d wanted to, and then it ended up that we didn’t have any opposition, so it wouldn’t have made sense,” Walrath said Monday.

Moore, who was in Brussels Monday discussing long-term care at an AARP conference, emailed answers to questions through his Senate spokeswoman. He said there was no conscious effort to solicit funds from health care players.

“I have no idea why so many people contributed,” Moore wrote. “It may have something to do with my active and successful involvement in many health care issues since 1999. It might be that they support my views on issues. Anyway, I don’t ask donors why they give to my campaign, only that I welcome their support. I never equate contributions with who supports or opposes any issue or legislation.”

He said the campaign seeks to make sure that all contributions fall within the law, adding, “I don’t aggressively raise funds. I send out invitations and those who wish send checks, attend breakfasts, or both.”

Moore is also playing a primary role in delaying a bill that would mandate nurse staffing levels. More than $5,000 came from contributors who listed themselves as employees of UMass Memorial Medical Center, where the nurses union and hospital officials have been at odds over negotiations since last December. Lobbyists who work for nurses groups also contributed.

His take through the end of August, detailed in the OCPF reports, slots Moore in the upper half of incumbent senators seeking re-election who had filed reports by 5 pm on Monday, with the deadline set at midnight.

But Moore is far below the chamber’s biggest fundraisers. Sen. President Robert Travaglini took in nearly $300,000, Sen. Jack Hart raised $121,000, and Sen. Mark Montigny sits on a war chest of over $1 million, despite a lackluster 2006.

Walrath said her primary fundraiser always comes the Sunday before the election, in Stow. The event typically raises “in excess of $10,000,” she said.

Beacon Hill observers say Moore, a fifth-term senator who served in the Clinton administration as an emergency management official and has been active in the moderate, national Democratic Leadership Council, possesses a more aggressive campaigning style. In her 11th term, the soft-spoken Walrath is a low-key legislator whose public stature was elevated significantly last year by her role in the health care debate.

“He’s much more of a campaigner than she is. And it’s different running for the Senate, you have more press you have to buy,” said a former senior legislative aide who spoke on the condition his name not be used. “You would think that in the committee that she is, they’re both pretty important in this health care reform, but she just doesn’t care to.”

Asked about her fundraising style, Walrath said in a telephone interview, “I don’t go out of my way, let’s put it that way.”

It’s not unusual for committee chairs to derive much of their campaign kitties from parties interested in affairs that might go before them. Certain panels covering specific fields – transportation, insurance, financial services, judiciary, and economic development, for instance – are seen as fundraising plums.

Walrath said she’d feel uncomfortable centering campaign-bankrolling activities around a legislative area in which she holds prominence.

“I’d probably feel a little more uneasy doing things of that sort than some legislators do,” she said.

Asked about the difference between his account and Walrath’s, Moore replied in an email, “I don’t think there is really any valid comparison. We’re two different people, representing very different districts, I’ve been an active legislator on health issues since 1999, she just entered that area this term.”
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Universal Health Care Education Fund, 8 Beacon St, Ste 26, Boston, MA 02108-3722
uhcef@aol.com | 617-723-7001 | 800-383-1973 | fax 617-723-7002

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