Coburn renews battle with Ethics over baby deliveries

Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) office hit back Monday at new attempts to prevent him from delivering babies for free, arguing the Ethics panel might as well investigate Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) cameo in “The Dark Knight.”

Coburn has come under new pressure from the Ethics panel for delivering babies at the Muskogee Regional Medical Center, which changed from a public to a private institution in April last year after it was acquired by Capella Healthcare.

{mosads}Because of potential conflicts of interest, Senate rules prohibit members from receiving compensation for practicing a profession that involves a fiduciary relationship. Coburn’s work as an obstetrician has been a subject of interest for ethics panels in the Senate and the House when he was a representative.

Sources said the fact that Muskogee is now a private hospital has renewed the ethics panel’s interest in Coburn’s work.

In May, Coburn received a strongly worded “final determination” memo threatening him with a Senate censure if he did not stop delivering babies for free. The letter prompted several heated meetings between Coburn and the Ethics Committee in June over the matter, according to two knowledgeable Senate sources.

Coburn spokesman John Hart agreed to discuss the issue only after The Hill contacted his office several times over the past two weeks. He called the Ethics panel’s logic “absurd” and its argument “inane.”

“Just as parents don't choose him hoping to sway his vote, parents don't choose to receive his services at a particular hospital because Dr. Coburn has somehow endorsed that hospital because he is a senator,” Hart said in a statement e-mailed to The Hill. “The committee has shown us zero empirical evidence to back up its flimsy claim.

“Has Sen. Leahy provided an improper endorsement to Warner Brothers for appearing in Batman?” Hart asked. “Will millions of Americans now see Batman not because it features stars like Christian Bale or the late Heath Ledger, but because Patrick Leahy, a distinguished United States senator, has offered his illustrious endorsement to this motion picture?

“If Sen. Coburn can only deliver babies for free at a public hospital, shouldn't Sen. Leahy only be allowed to donate his notable thespian skills to a public entity like PBS?”

Leahy spokesman David Carle pointed out that his boss gives any proceeds he receives from movie appearances to the Kellogg-Hubbard children’s wing of the Montpelier Public Library. Leahy received $2,000 for his appearance in “The Dark Knight,” all of which was given to the children’s fund, Carle said.

The new fight comes as Coburn is engaged in a battle with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over the Senate’s legislative agenda. Reid was forced to dedicate the majority of the Senate’s time this week to overpowering the holds Coburn has on 35 bills.

Hart suggested someone had leaked information about the Ethics panel’s memo to the media, and took issue with the The Hill’s ability to acquire “privileged information about this case.”

“We'll let others decide why this information is now suddenly becoming public,” Hart wrote.

Hart also said the Ethics panel should investigate Reid and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Ethics panel, for book signings they’ve had at privately owned bookstores if they are going to investigate Coburn’s baby deliveries.

“If the committee wants to walk down this path, we would expect they will investigate Sens. Reid and Boxer, who have both held books signing [sic] events at privately owned book stores,” Hart wrote. “After all, their events endorsed one book store over another. If Dr. Coburn can only deliver babies for free at public hospitals, Senators should only be permitted to sign books at public libraries.”

Reid’s and Boxer’s offices declined to comment. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the ranking member of the Ethics panel, also refused to comment on private ethics matters.

Hart estimates that Coburn has delivered dozens of babies since last receiving an ultimatum from the Ethics panel in 2005. Coburn has received no compensation for his work and paid “tens of thousands of dollars” out of his own pocket for medical malpractice insurance and other costs related to his medical practice, Hart said.

Other physicians in the Senate, such as former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a heart surgeon, voluntarily gave up their medical practices when they joined the Senate.

Coburn, however, wants to remain a true citizen-legislator and has long argued that the Senate should allow him to keep serving his patients because he plans to return to the practice when he leaves the Senate in 2016, consistent with his pledge to serve only two terms. He would like to keep up his medical skills if he is going to continue being able to earn a living in his chosen profession.

Frist, by contrast, had no plans to return to his practice when he retired from the Senate.

Asked about the recent Ethics Committee action, Coburn said he doesn’t believe he is in violation and will continue to fight any action taken against him.

“All I’m going to say is that’s a fight I would relish,” he said.

Hart said Coburn has no intention of abandoning his medical oath to his patients under threat of censure.

“The parents of babies Dr. Coburn delivers don't choose him hoping to sway his vote, and they never have,” Hart said. “In the 10 years Dr. Coburn has provided free healthcare to his neighbors while serving in Congress, the Ethics Committee has never pointed to a single conflict of interest. No lobbyist or any individual has ever attempted to infiltrate his medical office under the guise of an invasive medical exam to discuss Senate business.”

Coburn’s work as an obstetrician was controversial during his House career, but the House allowed him to continue to practice and make enough money to cover his medical bills. When he joined the Senate, the Ethics Committee issued him a letter prohibiting him from practicing medicine.

Coburn found allies in Frist and former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who chaired the Rules Committee at the time. Changing the Senate’s rules to allow Coburn to continue his work would have required 67 votes, which Frist and Lott knew would be difficult to reach.

Instead, in September 2005 they decided to offer a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that essentially let the Ethics Committee know the Senate wouldn’t back up any finding it made that delivering babies while a sitting senator was illegal. That resolution only needed 60 votes to be approved.

It failed, however, garnering only 51 votes. Only four of the body’s then 44 Democrats voted in favor of the resolution, and Boxer was not one of them.