Although a recent Supreme Court ruling has enabled corporations to start creating their own parallel campaigns of indirect support for political candidates, direct financial contributions from a corporation to a political candidate’s campaign committee are still illegal. It also remains against the law for management in a corporation to coordinate employees’ political contributions to particular candidates’ campaigns. However, in spite of the law, coordinated corporate campaign contributions are still taking place, and often it’s the campaigns of the most ambitious political up-and-comers participating in the banned practice.
Consider, as an example, a particular curiosity in the campaign finances of Indiana Congressman Mike Pence. On November 23, 2009, while the debate over health care reform legislation in Congress was running particularly hot, Representative Pence received several contributions from employees of insurance giant Blue Cross / Blue Shield. The contributions all came from a particular part of New Jersey, far away from Pence’s home district in Indiana.
From an initial scan of the FEC documents, it seems that Mike Pence’s Blue Cross / Blue Shield money came from CEO William Marino, Senior Vice President Mark Barnard, Robert Pures (listed ambiguously as “Executive”), “Financial Executive” David Huber, and COO and “EVP” Robert Marino. That’s bad enough, but there are other likely donations from this corporate source as well.
Some of the donors listed above described themselves as employees of “Blue Cross / Blue Shield”, while others described themselves as employees of “Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield”. On the same day, Christy Bell, who lists herself as a Senior Vice President at “Horizon” also gave money to Mike Pence. Also, Margaret Coons from Mountain Lakes, New Jersey made a donation of her own to Congressman Pence on November 23, 2009 – but failed to make the legally-required note of her employer’s identity. It doesn’t take too much digging to find out that Margaret Coons is a Vice President of Human Resources at Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield.
Two other sources of suspicious donations connected to Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield made on November 23, 2009 came from Emmanuel Kampouris and Camille Kampouris, who live at the same address in Morristown, New Jersey. At first glance, these two appear to be a humble couple, but they’re far from ordinary. Camille is listed as a “homemaker”, but actually worked as a “muppeteer” with Jim Henson for ten seasons on Sesame Street before branching out to create a puppet character on Christian home video series entitled Ben and Eddie. Emmanuel Kampouris lists himself as “retired”, but as of December 10, 2009 – weeks after he made his campaign contribution to Mike Pence, Kampouris was listed as a member of the Board of Directors of Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield.
Also on November 23, 2009, Mike Pence received a campaign donation from Elisa Lepre. Lepre, like Margaret Coons, did not report her employer as legally required. Elisa Lepre is not listed as an employee of Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield, but Christopher Lepre, who lives at the same house in Hillsborough, New Jersey, is a Senior Vice President at Horizon.
It’s not fair to say, however, that all the money given to Mike Pence on November 23, 2009 were from employees of Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield in New Jersey. One donation made to Congressman Pence on that day was from an employee of Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield living across the river in New York. This employee’s name is William Georges, who is Vice President of Investor Relations for Horizon Blue Cross / Blue Shield. As with Lepre and Coons, Bill Georges neglected to report his employer on the FEC donor form he completed for the Pence campaign.
On no other day of the year than November 23rd did Pence receive even one donation from any employee of any branch of Blue Cross / Blue Shield anywhere in the country. The odds that these contributions all came from one out-of-district Blue Cross / Blue Shield corporate office on one particular day, without any corporate coordination, are almost too small to calculate.
Just what happened on that day last year to provoke such a very peculiar concentration of cash contributions from one particular office of Blue Cross Blue Shield? It’s impossible for us to say – unless an FEC investigation of the suspicious campaign contributions takes place to dig deeper. Alas, no such investigation is taking place. Pence’s acceptance of a sudden, brief rush of money from Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield seems to have slipped through unnoticed.
People ought to take notice, in Indiana and across the nation. Mike Pence isn’t just a run-of-the-mill member of the House of Representatives. He’s one of the GOP’s top congressional leaders. Pence has also signaled his intention, through participation in yesterday’s Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll, to explore the possibility of running for President in 2012.
why does this not surprise me?