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We’re hearing all the paeans to Olympia Snowe today, that brave bipartisan moderate who was shamefully thrust out of Congress by extremists. The fact that Snowe had no credible challenger with two weeks before the deadline for filing doesn’t play into this, nor does the fact that she didn’t actually show the courage claimed in the article, at least not for the last couple years. Snowe intoned heavily about the dysfunctional Senate – she voted to keep the filibuster process, one of the main if not the main sources of that dysfunction, at the beginning of last year – and the inability for the parties to work together to solve the nation’s problems. It’s all so sad. All those brave bipartisan dealmakers are gone. She’s such a martyr.
That, or she left before a major corruption lawsuit came to light.
Nationally, most of the coverage of Snowe’s decision to drop her reelection bid has focused on the centrist Republican’s frustration with the polarized politics on Capitol Hill. But in Maine, a few newspapers have speculated that her husband’s legal entanglements had a role in Snowe’s sudden and surprising decision, which left her with more than $3 million in her campaign coffers and her party without a Senate candidate less than three weeks before the filing deadline for Maine’s June 12 primary.
According to the senator’s most recent financial disclosure form, she and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan Jr., have investments worth between $2 million and $10 million in Education Management Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that operates for-profit higher education institutions. McKernan is chairman of the board of directors of the company, now embroiled in a lawsuit in which the federal goverment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are seeking to recover a portion of the $11 billion in federal student aid that the education firm has received since July 2003.
Originally filed in April 2007 by a pair of whistleblowers, the lawsuit alleges that the company violated a federal law that prohibits schools from paying admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit and enroll. Those numbers can affect a school’s revenues because more students mean a school is potentially eligible for more federal aid dollars. The whistleblowers alleged, and provided documents indicating, that they were paid bounties for the number of students they enrolled.
The Justice Department complaint has been public since last August, and Snowe has been dinged for it locally in Maine. The fact that Snowe and her husband may have personally benefited from the ripoff of low-income college students hasn’t really entered the conversation. But often the cover story isn’t the real story. Maybe this is one of those times.
Meanwhile, as to Snowe’s replacement, it looks like every major Democrat in the state is gearing up for a shot at the seat. That includes the former Governor, John Baldacci, and both members of Congress, Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree, who confirmed her interest to the Huffington Post.
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Well, then, I guess her husband won’t run to succeed her, as some had speculated yesterday. Interesting, and sad, to see a woman end her career over her husband’s corruption, if true. I recall that her career began suddenly also, on the death of a previous (rich) husband.
Snowe often spoke as a moderate but almost always voted with her party. I won’t miss her.
Sounds plausible to me. One point though, does it seem likely that a BOD Chairman would have actual knowledge of the scheme? I doubt it. But as Chairman, he’s responsible for actions taken on his watch. I’m just saying that’s kinda getting into the weeds, per se.
So for me, the question isn’t “did he know?” The critical question is “should he have known?” And the answer is a resounding “yes.” He should have set a tone where legal compliance was important, but obviously didn’t.
And he should know that for-profit colleges are not Wall Street. So it’s entirely possible that he’ll be held to account!
Thanks for more of your superb reporting David. I had wondered also if there isn’t something else. As a semi-admirer of OS I had thought she might be ill. But this may well be the reason.
I don’t particularly care for moderates anyway. I’d rather have a Russ Feingold or Rand Paul anyday. Agree or disagree, at least I can respect them for taking a stand on principle.
Yeah, great reporting as usual DDay. My guess is that this was part of her decision. I imagine that she was being very honest when she said she had grown tired of the partisanship.
We don’t like in Washington, yet most of us are tired of the kabuki!
Aha! there is always a logical reason…
I saw a PBS program on for-profit colleges recently and had no idea of the loan scam they have been making billions from in recent years. Those who wish to profit from every scheme possible since everything-once-public has been privatized have left no stone unturned. Besides the fact they advertise to put people in jobs while stealing their loan funds and any chance for real success, the additional problem is that no one wants to hire graduates from these “schools,” so their promises of jobs have no merit either.
Shameful.
Surely the key reason for all the privatization is to help crony capitalists loot the treasury.
Unfortunately, instead of opposing privatization, for this very reason, Democrats have embraced it in favor of helping crony capitalists loot the treasury.
Witness the destruction of the USPS in favor of UPS, FedEx, etc. Legislators forced USPS to prepay its pensions which caused an otherwise profitable business model to look bad on paper.
Witness Barack Obama standing with JEB touting Charter Schools. Obama – extending NCLB and vouchers to loot the Public School System and Wreck the Teachers Union.
And
Obama – The Government cannot create jobs. All jobs must come from the Private Sector.
The elite have taken a larger toll on America over the last decade than the terrorists!
The Federal Government is only good for national defense … and bill collecting.
They have an investment in the education operation worth between $2 and $10 million, and the organization raked in $11 billion in the past nine years? Eleven thousand million dollars is more than the endowment of every major university in the country, save Harvard, Yale, Stanford and University of Texas. It’s bigger than the annual budget of many states in the U.S. For example, the current fiscal year’s state budget for Maine is only $6.1 billion.
Yeah, you’re right. But I took her at face value when she implied, if not stated, that the arm-twisting by her party leadership is what drove her to quit. I’m not sorry for throwing kind words her way but…the possibilities suggested in this report gives me the beginnings of feeling violated.
Like I voted Green in 08 but at the same time did trust Obama’s intentions about “Change”. Then in the 1st hours of his reign, suddenly Larry Summers was in charge of the American economy. He never even intended to Change anything. That’s the kind of feeling of violation.
So true. This is not the America I grew up in. It has become more and more foreign every day.