Analysis: 49% of giving to Maggio from 2 firms

Two nursing-home chains accounted for nearly half of the $58,650 contributed to Faulkner County Circuit Judge Mike Maggio’s abandoned campaign for Arkansas’ second-highest court, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of campaign-finance data shows.

Maggio accepted $16,000 in direct contributions from nursing homes operated by Ovation Health Systems Inc. of Conway, headed by Brandon Adams and Bryan Adams, according to campaign-finance reports and other documents on file with the Arkansas secretary of state. All of those donations came on the same day, Nov. 22, Maggio reported.

Earlier news reports show that Maggio also received $12,950 from political action committees financed primarily by nursing-home opera-tor Michael Morton of Fort Smith. The judge reported receiving those gifts in December and January.

Arkansas’ campaign-finance laws ban individuals and corporations from giving more than $2,000 per election to a single candidate. Donation limits exist for federal and most state elections. They’re designed to curb the amount of influence through money that one contributor can have on elections and officeholders, experts say.

Arkansas contributors who own several companies can legally have each business donate maximum amounts.

Two Arkansas commissions are investigating ethical and legal issues surrounding Maggio’s campaign and donor contributions to PACs that supported him. The Morton nursing-home donations to those PACs took place about the same time that Maggio decided in July to reduce a Faulkner County jury’s judgment in a wrongful-death lawsuit against a Morton-owned facility. Maggio cut the award from $5.2 million to $1 million.

Nursing homes nationwide, along with doctors associations and insurance companies, long have been interested in lawsuit judgments. They’ve often lobbied lawmakers to limit court awards to injured or deceased patients, their families and others in civil lawsuits.

Morton has said he contributed to Maggio’s campaign because “I’m for a more conservative bench.”

National watchdog groups are critical of corporate and special-interest contributions, saying the money may influence - or appear to influence - judges’ decisions from the bench.

“We have been very focused on the rising tide of special-interest money into judicial races around the country,” said Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake, a Washington-based nonpartisan association of groups (whose website is at www.justiceatstake.org) that focus on keeping courts fair and impartial.

Special-interest contributions to judicial races “exploded in 2000” and have risen since, Brandenburg said. As a result, “the majority of people we’ve polled fear justice is for sale,” he said.

Maggio had sought a seat on Arkansas’ 12-member Court of Appeals. He withdrew March 6 after being criticized for comments he made online about women, sex and an actress’ sealed adoption records.

According to his final contribution and expenditure report filed Friday, Maggio has returned his campaign’s remaining funds - $46,798.84 - to contributors.

Donations from the Morton- and Ovation-backed entities accounted for 49 percent of Maggio’s reported campaign contributions as of Feb. 28, according to the newspaper’s analysis.

Eight nursing homes operated by Ovation Health Systems Inc. each donated $2,000 to Maggio’s appeals court campaign, the newspaper’s analysis found. That accounted for $16,000, or about one-fourth of the gifts to the judge’s campaign.

Maggio’s campaign-finance reports list those nursing homes as: Alcoa Pines Health and Rehabilitation of Benton, Chapel Woods Health and Rehabilitation in Warren, Hometown Nursing Center in Trumann, Mountain Meadows Health and Rehabilitation of Batesville, The Crossing at Riverside at Searcy, The Lakes at Maumelle Health and Rehabilitation, Twin Oaks Health and Rehabilitation at Jonesboro, and Village Springs Health and Rehabilitation at Hot Springs.

The companies are owned or managed by Ovation Health Systems Inc., Brandon Adams, Anthony Adams and/ or Bryan Adams, according to state business incorporation documents and medicare.gov, a federal website that provides consumer information about nursing homes.

The documents also list the same corporate address for each of the eight nursing homes: 824 Salem Road, Suite210, Conway. That’s also the address of another company: Reliance Health Care of Conway. Brandon Adams is president of Reliance and Bryan Adams is vice president and secretary, according to documents filed with the secretary of state.

Brandon Adams did not return a reporter’s calls seeking information about the nursing homes and their donations to Maggio.

Eric Bell, a Little Rock lawyer, responded by email on Monday to the Democrat-Gazette’s questions on behalf of Ovation.

“The laws and regulations that affect our profession are approved by legislators and interpreted by judges. We participate in the political process through our First Amendment right. Our donations are a matter of public record. We support the transparency of the process and believe the public disclosure of our donations provides all relevant information concerning them.

“It is our company policy not to discuss the relationship between our companies,” Bell wrote.

Federal election laws and most states try to insulate judicial selection from campaign finance issues.

Higher-court judges in 29 states are initially appointed rather than elected, according to a 2013 study by Emory University law professor Joanna Shepherd.

“The judicial arena is the check on the legislative and the executive branches,” said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics in Montana. “If they have to get donations from individuals and companies and run for election, that puts them in the same political sphere” as government lawmakers and chief executives.

“You have a situation where your judicial races, which are supposed to be above reproach, have to take donations, then make decisions about those companies,” Bender said.

State Supreme Court candidates nationwide who are required to run for election raised less than $6 million in the 1989-90 election cycle,according to Emory law professor Shepherd’s 2013 study, “Justice At Risk.” By 2009-10, candidates for those seats accepted more than $38 million.

“Almost 90 percent of voters and 80 percent of judges believe that by means of campaign contributions, interest groups are trying to use the courts to shape policy,” the study said.

Maggio’s campaign first drew media attention this year when Blue Hog Report, a Democratic-leaning website, linked the judge to anonymous message board postings by “geauxjudge,” concerning a confidential 2012 adoption by actress Charlize Theron. Other online comments, which Maggio later acknowledged as his own, included postings that criticized women who divorce their husbands, homosexuals and transsexuals. He wrote graphically about “rodeo sex” and joked about incest and bestiality in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission is investigating that matter and allegations regarding the circuit court judge’s campaign contributions.

Morton-backed donations went to seven political action committees on July 8, according to campaign-finance records filed Oct. 15. Those documents have been amended since to reflect later dates for receipt of the contributions.

July 8 was the same day Maggio heard a request to reduce a negligence lawsuit award against a Morton-owned facility in the 2008 death of patient Martha Bull. On July 11, Maggio reduced the jury’s judgment against Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center by $4.2 million.

Later, the seven PACs that received money from Morton or his companies donated almost exclusively to Maggio’s campaign, secretary of state records show. Maggio reported accepting $12,950 from those PACs, amounting to 22 percent of his campaign receipts.

On March 24, the Arkansas Supreme Court relieved Maggio of all cases until further notice. His term ends Dec. 31. He is still being paid his $138,982 annual salary.

Complaints about the campaign donations and related issues also have gone to the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

Maggio did not return phone calls and emails from the Democrat-Gazette this week.

Morton did not return calls late Wednesday. He has said his contributions were legal and that he and his companies are frequent donors to political campaigns.