How long is too long?

How long is too long? How long should any one person be allowed to serve in public office? Wyoming voters thought there should be a limit. They passed term limits overwhelmingly in 1992. Then they watched helplessly as the politicians went to court to overturn the will of the people.

Now no law answers the question, “How long?” The Hebrew prophet Habakkuk spoke of “men whose own might is their god.” In other words, it’s been too long when it’s more about political power than public service.

Consider State Senator Eli Bebout. He was first elected to the legislature three decades ago as a Democrat. Soon thereafter, promises of political rewards from the Republican hierarchy were enticement enough for him to shed that skin. Mr. Bebout became the Speaker of the House.

He took a few years respite from the legislature running unsuccessfully for Governor in 2002. The untimely 2007 death of esteemed Fremont County Senator Bob Peck opened the door for Mr. Bebout to return to the legislature where he’s been ever since.

How long is too long? Maybe the answer is not measured in years alone. Maybe it has to do with the callousness that grows with longevity. In Sen. Bebout’s case it’s the inability to understand that it’s offensive when his corporation, according to an ethics complaint filed against him, pocketed $26.7 million in state contracts from Abandoned Mines Land (AML) funds since 2010, with $8 million of that in “change orders” not put out for bid. 

Not surprisingly, his Republican Senate colleagues cleared him of any ethics violation. Is that determinative? Shouldn’t the voters ask other questions? After all, this legislator led the effort to kill Medicaid expansion. The program would have provided 18,000 Wyoming people with healthcare, 3,000 of which are Sen. Bebout’s constituents.

He said the federal government couldn’t be relied on to pay its share of Medicaid, but he relies on it to pay the AML dollars he receives, funds he voted to appropriate making the state senate the middle man between the feds and his own bank account.

How long is too long? Consider Natrona County State Senator Charlie Scott. Charlie’s been in the Wyoming legislature since Jimmy Carter’s administration. Unlike fine wine, Charlie hasn’t improved with age but rather has become the poster child for term limits.

Among his colleagues he is thought to be articulate. He is sufficiently articulate that his fellow legislators often believe him when they should be Googling a fact check. His ability to express himself hides his routine abuse of the facts. He has used his powerful position as chair of the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee to wage a war on struggling low-income families. His fingerprints are on the worst legislation the state has enacted negatively impacting worker safety, workers compensation, juvenile justice, child and family well-being and healthcare.

Charlie Scott’s cause celebre is to deny healthcare to 18,000 working families. He says these programs remind him of European-style socialism. But in his judgment, programs giving agricultural subsidies to wealthy landowners don’t fall into that category. Sen. Scott pockets thousands of dollars from the same federal government he says cannot be relied on to pay for Medicaid expansion.

But, Mr. Scott says, “it’s apples to oranges” comparing agricultural subsidies to Medicaid expansion. It’s more like apples and the shaft. He gets the apples and working folks get the shaft.

It’s more likely the grim reaper, rather than the voters, will take him out. That’s because Mr. Scott has also been the leader in Gerrymandering legislative districts. He’s made certain his seat is safe for life.

How long is too long? The question answers itself when legislators like Eli Bebout and Charlie Scott see no problem with taking public funds to enrich themselves while denying middle class and low-income working families the help they need. They’ve been in public office too long when they use the process to take care of themselves instead of those they are elected to serve.

Charlie's hoping to go 0 for 5

How many times does a legislator have to be wrong for his colleagues to look for someone else to follow?

The answer can be found in the Sagebrush Gospel of Matthew. “Because so many could not pay their medical bills, the state of Wyoming had been robbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter and Paul came to him and said, “Lord, if another member of the legislature misleads us, how often should we continue to follow his advice? As many as seven times?” Charlie Scott said to them, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

A hard count discloses Senator Scott used up his quota. Call the “Guinness Book of World Records” folks. Is it possible that one member of a legislative body could be wrong so many times on a single issue and still have a following?

It started in what seems a "long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Initially Scott predicted Congress wouldn’t even pass the Affordable Care Act. They did. Then his defective crystal ball told him the 2010 elections would result in Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and they would repeal the law. That didn’t happen. Next he put all his eggs in another basket. Charlie foretold the Supreme Court would find the law unconstitutional. Nope. He then prophesied that Mitt Romney would become president and repeal the act. That didn’t work out so well either.

For three years, most Wyoming legislators have allowed Charlie Scott to lead the debate over Medicaid expansion. He was batting 0 for 4 before this debate began and hasn’t gotten a hit yet. Even the Colorado Rockies would have cut him by now. But then baseball is a team game. Legislators, on the other hand, choose whether to pull their own weight. Too many are willing to allow someone else to do the heavy lifting.

On this issue, they’ve acceded to Scott despite his consistently wrong calls.

This year is different. Governor Mead has finally decided to lead on Medicaid expansion. Republicans now must choose between the recommendations of their Governor and those of their erstwhile, consistently wrong senate colleague.

The choice should be easy. After all, a majority voted just last year to ask the Wyoming Department of Health experts to study the question and report their recommendation. That was an important step. You see, Medicaid is an enormously complex, often not completely mapped jungle of federal statutes, rules, and decision makers. Getting it right requires the skills of someone who is consistently correct.

WDH did what the legislature asked. They negotiated with the federal government and developed a recommendation. It’s a recommendation that meets the criteria established by the legislature last year, conforms to federal law, and will finally resolve this critical debate.

But, it isn’t good enough for Charlie Scott. He wants another “at-bat,” hoping to go 0 for 5.

In truth, Scott doesn’t want to expand Medicaid. He believes it is socialism. He is hell-bent on making a political statement out of the lives of those who do not have adequate healthcare because they have no health insurance.

His tactics have changed. Instead of fighting expansion head-on, Scott is asking his colleagues to ignore the Health Department experts and follow him once again. As the scripture says, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

What Charlie won’t tell the legislature is what the experts are saying. Charlie Scott’s “alternative-universe” bill will never be approved by the federal government. Charlie knows that. His scheme is to mislead his colleagues one more time and get them to pass his proposal. Then he can blame the feds when they determine it does not meet the requirements of federal law.

The 18,000 uninsured and the Wyoming hospitals that are losing tens-of-millions each year providing uncompensated care are hoping the legislators who represent them believe in what George W. Bush once said. “Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.”

Time to open presents

How exciting is this time of the year? Christmas is the season of gift giving. The time has come to gather round the proverbial Christmas tree and hand out the gifts. This year’s tree is a beautiful blue spruce. Oops, maybe not. I see now it’s a beetle kill tree from the Medicine Bow National Forest painted over. How nice of someone to keep us from thinking about that nasty climate change at this festive time of the year.

Well let’s get right to the presents. 

Ah look. The first one is for the Wyoming legislature. They say good things come in small packages. It’s a small bit of compassion. How wonderful. Legislators can certainly use it.

There are approximately 18,000 low-income people in this state who have been denied health insurance and access to healthcare only because they found themselves collateral damage in a partisan contest between Republicans and President Obama. With this little gift of compassion, perhaps enough legislators will be able to rise above all of that and actually take care of their constituents. I do hope the package is big enough.

Oh and here’s a gift for the taxpayers of Wyoming. It’s a gift from the Wyoming Department of Health. But the tag says, “Do not open until Medicaid is expanded.” If Medicaid is expanded, the taxpayers of Wyoming will receive a gift of ten-of-millions of dollars in health care, cost savings, and new jobs.

And who is this gift for? Oh, The Wyoming Liberty Group. It’s a beautiful new custom fly rod. Too bad most of them won’t be able to buy a resident fishing license for a while. But then with all that Texas money, they can afford the non-resident license. Good fishing. By the way, I hear some folks are actually taking your bait.

Did anybody get anything for WyWatch? These are the folks who use the Bible to foist their narrow religious views on everyone else. The problem is that their “views” come from a self-serving and erroneous reading of the Old Testament.

So this gift is perfect for my “Old-Testament-Christian” friends. It’s a Bible that includes the New Testament. That will certainly come in handy. I know they’re more comfortable using misinterpreted judgments of the Old Testament to lobby on behalf of inequality and discrimination. This gift will bring them out of their comfort zone.

Now that they have a Bible that includes the New Testament, they’ll be able to read the words of Jesus. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” for example.

Ah, here’s a package for State Senator Charlie Scott. It feels like a framed picture. Ah it is! Look. It is a photo of Charlie with his boyhood friend Methuselah. It says the photo was taken on Methuselah’s 969^th birthday, shortly before the Great Flood and a few weeks before Charlie was elected to his first term in the legislature. What a keepsake. The inscription reads, “Term limits are for sissies! Love, Methuselah.”

Here’s a package for CROW, the Conservative Republicans of Wyoming. Listen. Do you hear a ticking sound? Oh my. I see now. It’s not for CROW. It’s FROM CROW. Maybe we ought to have the bomb squad open this one.

Wait just a minute. Didn’t anyone get anything for the Governor? I thought about it but figured he’d already gotten his present on Election Day. Getting another four years to finally do something is gift enough. Wait there is one more present under the tree. It is for the Governor.

Shake it. Oh my. There are a couple of round things rolling around in the package. What could they be? Let’s read the note. Oh, it’s not what I thought. The note says, “For Governor Mead, two lumps of coal. You deserved a whole sack but EPA regulations allowed only for these two small chunks.”

I’d have bought a present for the voters of Wyoming but decided they have all they’re going to get and deserve whatever it is.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Should Democrats save GOP from itself?

My record for political prognostication has been consistent… consistently wrong. I predicted the election of Presidents Birch Bayh, Gary Hart, and Ted Kennedy. I had it right once but five members of the Supreme Court snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Failure never stopped me from trying again. So here goes.

I predict the 2014 Republican primary for the Senate will be decided not by Republicans, but by whether or not enough Democrats decide to cross over to vote against Liz Cheney.

Current polls may give Enzi a big lead, but by the time Liz has actually lived in Wyoming long enough to legally purchase a resident fishing license, those numbers will change. What matters now isn’t what Republicans say when asked whether they’d vote for Enzi or Cheney if the election were today.

The reason the race will narrow in coming months can be found in the probing questions Cheney’s pollsters most likely asked. You can bet Dick Cheney’s daughter didn’t decide to run without a strong reason to believe she could win. All you need to know about what pollsters learned that gives Cheney encouragement is that Mike Enzi has joined Tea Partiers like Ted Cruz in threatening to shut down the government if Democrats don’t agree to defund Obamacare, an ideas Enzi’s Republican colleague, Senator Richard Burr (North Carolina) calls “dumb” and the New York Times called “reckless.”

Enzi knows what Liz learned polling Wyoming Republicans. A majority is more interested in doctrinaire, anti-Obama, uncompromising rhetoric than in having an effective senator. They prefer someone who lobs grenades and takes no prisoners to one who might be willing to negotiate a cease-fire. Evidence the comparatively lukewarm reception Enzi received last weekend at Tea Party events.

A divided Republican Party won’t determine the outcome, neither Tea Partiers nor RINOS. Democrats will have to decide whether to save the GOP from itself.

Remember the 2010 GOP primary that nominated Matt Mead? Most Republicans didn’t want him to be their nominee. They wanted someone they perceived as far more conservative. That candidate frightened Democrats who crossed over in droves to vote in the GOP primary for Mead, assuring him the nomination, which was tantamount to winning the general election.

In Natrona County, Democrats did the same for state senator Charlie Scott. They feared the religious-right candidacy of Bob Brechtel and so they crossed over and saved Scott’s bacon.

In both cases, Democrats have been more than a little disappointed. In response to Brechtel’s challenge Charlie became Bob, leading efforts to kill a bill protecting homosexuals from job-related discrimination and stopping the expansion of Medicaid. They got Bob Brechtel’s voting record with Scott’s influence. It was a bad bargain.

The disappointment with Mead is even greater. His “thank-you” to those who secured his nomination has been to cross-over to the Republican right on everything from fracking to Medicaid expansion. He decided that instead of showing gratitude to those who nominated him, he would try to shore up his right-wing.

Now we are coming into 2014 and Democrats are already considering whether to bail out Mike Enzi. Remember George Bush’s admonition, “fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me – well, you can't get fooled again”? Democrats have been victimized by unrequited love before and hesitate to give themselves away again. As much as Democrats relish a chance to get a bit of revenge against Dick Cheney they may choose to exercise some restraint. If Enzi decides that to win the nomination he has to “out-nutty” Liz Cheney, Democrats have nothing to gain or lose by letting Republicans decide their nominee for themselves.

Enzi’s willingness to demand the repeal of Obamacare as the price for his vote to approve a budget is a bad omen. I may be wrong again. Mike Enzi may not need Democrats in 2014 like Mead needed them in 2010. He’s signaling he wants to do it on his own. Unless he throws Democrats a bone, they should let him.

Will Wyoming be left alone...again?

State Senator Eli Bebout says Wyoming can wait another year to expand Medicaid. He speaks like someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to be uninsured. Governor Mead says Wyoming needs “more answers.” They remind me of the old adage, “Either lead, follow or get out the hell out of the way. If he doesn’t do one or the other, Mead may well become the only governor in America refusing to expand Medicaid coverage to the uninsured.

Nearly every other Republican governor is aboard. Recently Rick Snyder of Michigan embraced Medicaid expansion, the latest conservative Republican governor to figure out what’s best for his state. Snyder joins several anti-Obamacare Republican governors signing on, including Arizona’s Jan Brewer and Ohio's John Kasich. Republican governors in North Dakota, Nevada and New Mexico have done the right thing for their people.

The National Journal reports even Florida Governor Rick Scott is wavering. Although Texas Governor and Tea Party darling Rick Perry promises resistance, some GOP legislators are planning to join. Of course.  The Urban Institute calculates each would receive $7 in federal aid for every $1 contributed to expanding coverage.

But not Governor Mead. Not Wyoming’s GOP legislators. They are standing firm, if alone, willing to needlessly spend millions of your tax dollars while leaving constituents uninsured to score meaningless political points. Wyoming has 30,000 uninsured people and spends multi-millions providing a patchwork of medical care programs for them. Our hospitals lose 200 million dollars annually caring for uninsured patients. But Wyoming Republicans prefer to represent those who hate Obamacare more than they care about the health of their neighbors.

Last year, the Governor used your tax dollars on a quixotic joust to convince the Supreme Court that Obamacare was unconstitutional. He’s a lawyer who should have known better. The Supreme Court said Mead was wrong, that Obama was right.

However, the high court ruled that under Obamacare the expansion of Medicaid was optional. Governors could decide. The Tea Partiers pressed governors to resist Medicaid expansion as a way of fighting Obamacare despite clear evidence it will reduce the numbers of uninsured, save millions in tax dollars, improve the healthcare system and provide needed medical care to those who now suffer and die early from a lack of that care.

That mattered little to Matt Mead and most GOP legislators. The most indecisive governor in Wyoming history shrugged his shoulders even after the director of his own health department said expansion of Medicaid was the best fiscal decision the state could make. Told that Medicaid expansion could save the lives of uninsured people while saving state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, Mead said in effect, “This decision is to tough for me. I am only the governor. I will let the legislature decide.” Perhaps he thought they’d have the courage and empathy he lacked. They didn’t.

Meanwhile nearly every other Republican governor has decided that politics be damned, Medicaid expansion is a good deal. Wyoming’s governor and legislators have operated on myths while other Republicans have decided the facts and their people matter more. For GOPers outside of Wyoming it makes sense. The federal government will initially cover 100 percent of the costs, declining to 90 percent in a few years.

Senator Charlie Scott, the self-appointed healthcare guru in Wyoming told colleagues, with absolutely no evidence, the feds won’t pay. The lemmings lined up and Wyoming’s people will pay the price. You will continue to pay millions of dollars to provide health care for the uninsured and you’ll continue paying for uncompensated care at local hospitals.

Other states with genuinely fiscally conservative governors and legislatures will be able to end the programs they have funded to fill the gap. The taxpayers in their states will save millions, their uninsured will have insurance and preventive care, and their hospitals will no longer shift the costs of the uninsured to those with insurance.

But not here. Not Wyoming. We settled for a governor who believes he was elected to serve only some of the people and legislators who were elected to serve even fewer.