About a year ago, I flagged a good post over at Advance Indiana that discussed Rep. Eric Turner’s (R-Marion) investment in his son’s building that profited from leasing space to ACS for a call center used in its welfare eligibility privatization operation. (This issue was investigated by Angela Mapes Turner of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.)
Today, Leo Morris discusses a report by Heather Gillers for the Indianapolis Star. Seems Rep. Turner and his son, Zeke, are involved in another conflict situation. Rep. Turner is invested in his son’s company which a nursing home developer. That company, represented by a lobbyist who is Turner’s daughter and a former FSSA attorney, is opposing legislation that would limit nursing home construction.
On a completely different subject, “venal” is a word I learned when I worked for the General Assembly.
We are so glad you are revealing these conflicts of interest with Eric Turner. Why do we let him get away with this crap?
These people don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “conflict.” Here in Marion County, Ryan Vaughn was baffled by my suggestion that his (decisive) vote for the parking meter contract with ACS when he was a member of the law firm representing ACS was a conflict. He spent a good half-hour “explaining” why it wasn’t–an explanation long on jargon and entirely free of merit. In Turner’s case, we might charitably assume that a man who worries that women will all claim to have been raped if we provide an exception to his anti-choice bill for rape and incest isn’t really bright enough to understand the concept of a conflict.