Legislators list trips, meals paid by lobbies

— A pharmacy benefit management company paid for state lawmakers to tour its company’s headquarters in St. Louis, the state’s electric cooperatives paid for lawmakers to tour a coal mine in Wyoming and an energy consortium paid for a state lawmaker to meet with provincial officials in Canada last year.

On their annual financial disclosure forms, state lawmakers revealed these payments for their food, lodging and travel expenses that exceeded $150 last year. The forms were filed with the secretary of state’s office last month as state law requires.

Lobbyist Ted Mullenix of Hot Springs, whose clients include the St. Louis-based pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Inc., said he doesn’t recall how many state lawmakers visited the company’s headquarters on an educational trip in December.

“No fancy hotel rooms and no fancy meals. It was one dayup and back,” emphasized Mullenix’s lobbying partner and wife, Julie Mullenix.

Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said he learned about the company’s mail-order business in St. Louis.

“Just watching all these millions of prescriptions being filled byrobots without humans touching them, it was impressive, the scope of it,” he said.

Julie Mullenix said the trip’s aim was to educate more lawmakers about pharmacy benefit management companies and what they do.

“In the era of term limits, I think it is important for lawmakers to have opportunities like that to gain good information and education, so they are in a position to make good policy decisions,” she said.

Among other things, pharmacy benefit management companies provide prescriptions to employers’ workers, said Julie Mullenix.

Express Scripts handles millions of prescriptions each year through home delivery from the Express Scripts Pharmacy and at retail pharmacies, according to its website.

Julie Mullenix said the firm is able to negotiate lower prices for drugs with pharmacies because of its large volume of business.

While lobbyists representing pharmacists and pharmacy benefit managers have adamantly disagreed about legislation to regulate pharmacy benefit managers in previous sessions, the trip wasn’t linked to lobbying on any particular legislation, she said.

Mark Riley, executive vice president for the Arkansas Pharmacists Association, said the trip is “classic lobbying” in which Ted and Julie Mullenix try to get legislators to be “empathetic” about the pharmacy benefit management company.

He said he doesn’t blame them for it.

But “we need some kind of regulation” to make pharmacy benefit managers more transparent, he said. These managers compete with pharmacists, he noted.

Lamoureux reported thatExpress Scripts Inc. paid $618.06 for his trip to St. Louis on Dec. 10.

“I have always had mixed emotions on that subject,”Lamoureux said about pharmacy benefit managers. “I don’t think one side is always right or the other side is always wrong. I think both sides seekadvantage.”

Other lawmakers reporting that the firm paid the same expenses for them include Sens. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, and Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, and Reps. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, Deborah Ferguson, D-West Memphis, Stephanie Malone, R-Fort Smith, Chris Richey, D-Helena-West Helena, and Richard Womack, RArkadelphia.

Sen. Ron Caldwell, RWynne, said the firm paid for his expenses for the trip in December, but he was advised he didn’t have to report that information on his financialdisclosure report because he wasn’t sworn into office until Jan. 14. He said he didn’t recall who advised him of that.

Bledsoe is chairman of the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, on which Caldwell and Chesterfield serve. Leding, Ferguson, Malone, Richey and Womack serve on the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee.

Ferguson, a dentist, said the trip was helpful for her to understand that pharmacy benefit managers contract with large employers to provide prescriptions by mail at reduced cost to their employees.

ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES

Nine lawmakers reported that the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corp. paid expenses of about $1,400 each for their trip in late June to South Dakota and Wyoming to tour a coal mine in the Powder River Basin.

They are Reps. David Branscum, R-Marshall, Robert Dale, R-Dover, Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, Homer Lenderman, D-Brookland, Kelley Linck, R-Yellville, James Ratliff, DImboden, Tommy Thompson, D-Morrilton, Jeff Wardlaw, DWarren, and Tommy Wren, D-Melbourne.

Carmie Henry, vice president of government affairs forthe electric cooperatives, also reported that he paid $1,468.39 for the trip expenses of thenstate Sen. Mike Fletcher, DHot Springs.

Fletcher’s report for last year wasn’t available through the secretary of state’s office Friday.

Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corp. based in Little Rock provides power for more than 500,000 members of Arkansas’ 17 electric distribution cooperatives, according to its website.

Henry said the electric cooperatives have educated lawmakers about the importance of coal in keeping Arkansas electricity prices relatively low; they’ve been making the trip periodically for about a decade.

He said he tries to get a balance of Democrats and Republicans for the coal mine trip, and selects lawmakers “who are more activist on legislation.”

But, Henry said, he doesn’t determine who is going to attend based on who is going to sponsor legislation for the cooperatives because “you can’t figure that out” at the time of the trip.

Branscum, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Energy Committee, initially said last week that he wasn’t sponsoring any potentially contentious legislation that would affect the electrical cooperatives.

But he later said he learned that possible legislation that he hasn’t yet filed to streamline the state Department of Environmental Quality’s appeals process could affect the electric cooperatives and could be contentious.

CANADA TRIPS

Last month, former Sen. Randy Laverty, D-Jasper, amended his financial-disclosure report for 2011 to disclose that The Energy Council paid about $2,500 for him to meet with government officials in Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia in Canada in April 2011, attend its leadership orientation session in Dallas in August 2011, and meet with Texas officials and plan for its conference in Dallas in October 2011.

Laverty, who is now the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services’ commissioner, reported that the council in 2012 paid about $1,470 in expenses for him to meet with Mississippi officials in Jackson from Jan. 31-Feb. 2, meet with officialsin New Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in March, and to meet with Kazakhstan officials in Houston in June.

In addition, he reported that the Consulate General of Canada paid $1,782 for his airfare to meet officials in Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia in April 2011 and $2,328 for his airfare and hotel stay to meet officials in Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in March 2012.

Laverty was the council’s chairman last year and its vice chairman the previous year. He could not be reached for comment at his office Friday.

Formed in 1975, The Energy Council is a consortium of energy-producing states, several Canadian provinces and Venezuela. It holds meetings aimed at getting lawmakers up to speed on energy issuesCOUNTRY MUSIC

State Rep. John Burris, RHarrison, and Malone each reported receiving concert tickets valued at $100 from Entergy Corp. on Dec. 6.

Paul Means, a lobbyist for Entergy, reported on his own report that he provided four tickets valued at $216 to Malone for country music singer Eric Church’s concert at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, and Malone paid $116 of the cost, resulting in a net gift of $100.

Means reported that he gave two tickets valued at $108 to Burris for the concert, and Burris paid $8 of the cost, resulting in a net gift of $100.

He reported that he gave two tickets valued at $108 to now-House Chief of Staff Gabe Holmstrom for the concert, and Holmstrom paid $8 of the cost, resulting in a net gift of $100.

Holmstrom, who previously worked for the Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods advertising and public-relations firm, started working for the House on Jan. 2.

Means reported that he gave one ticket valued at $54 for the concert to state Rep. Mary Lou Slinkard, R-Gravette.

Means said in an interview that Burris, Holmstrom, Malone and Slinkard asked him to purchase the tickets for them, and they attended the concert together. Means said he didn’t attend the concert.

Public officials are required under state law to report the source, date, description and a reasonable estimate of the fair market value of each gift of more than $100 received by them or their spouses.

A gift is defined as “any payment, entertainment, advance, services or anything of value unless consideration of equal or greater value has been given therefor,” but there are more than a dozen exceptions to the definition of a gift.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/24/2013

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