Copyright 2000 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San
Francisco Chronicle
AUGUST 17, 2000, THURSDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A19
LENGTH: 679 words
HEADLINE:
Congressman Demands Probe of S.F. AIDS Group
BYLINE:
Chronicle Staff Report
DATELINE: San Francisco
BODY:
A powerful Republican congressman has crossed
swords with San Francisco Board of Supervisors candidate Eileen Hansen over how
the AIDS legal assistance organization for which she works spends its federal
dollars.
Hansen is expected to resign at the end of this week after six
years as public policy director for the AIDS Legal Referral Panel to devote more
time to her candidacy in November's district elections. She hopes to represent
District 8, a seat also sought by Supervisor Mark Leno -- an ally of Mayor
Willie Brown. Hansen is backed by Brown rival Tom Ammiano, for whom Hansen has
worked as an unpaid campaign strategist.
In a heated exchange of news
releases and e-mails, Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., declared that the AIDS Legal
Referral Panel has "clearly violated federal" law by allegedly using taxpayer
funds for lobbying purposes.
Coburn, a conservative doctor from
Muskogee, Okla., demanded that Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala
investigate the finances of the group, which receives $200,000
a year from the Ryan White CARE Act, the federal program that
allocates AIDS grants to local agencies throughout the nation.
In an
August 10 letter to Shalala, Coburn requested that Shalala ask for a refund of
the Ryan White money the group has received "so that this money can be spent on
patient care as it was intended."
Hansen said yesterday the AIDS Legal
Referral Panel public policy program is paid for entirely through private grants
-- as it has been for years.
"I'm not aware of any organization that
does public policy work that would use Ryan White dollars for it. It's a basic
principle, and we are all very aware of it," she said.
Hansen said her
organization has offered to show Coburn its books. "He's welcome to audit us,"
she said. "We can show him expenses and income statements. Everything is clear
and clean."
The flap is a product of a political disagreement, Hansen
said, between Coburn and her organization over the Ryan White CARE
Act, which is up for a five-year reauthorization in Congress. San
Francisco stands to lose as much as 25 percent of the $35
million it receives annually in Ryan White funding because of changes in the
formula for allocating AIDS dollars during the next five years.
A
physician who has treated AIDS patients, Coburn has said San Francisco receives
twice as much federal money per individual AIDS case as other cities where the
rate of HIV infection is rising faster, particularly among minorities and women.
Coburn is playing a leading role in shaping the reauthorization, which has
passed both houses of Congress and is under consideration by a conference
committee next month.
Coburn and the AIDS Legal Referral Panel are at
odds, as they were five years ago, on a key provision calling for financial
incentives for states that require pregnant women and their babies to receive
HIV testing. Coburn strongly favors the provision, while Hansen is a leading
opponent of it.
The dispute appears to have become personal after Hansen
issued a news release on August 7 "denouncing" the testing provision Coburn
successfully inserted into the House bill. "Mandatory testing of any individual
or population is unnecessary, inappropriate and is not in the best interest of
serving the public health," she wrote.
"Because he disagreed with our
stand, he is threatening us with loss of our dollars," Hansen said yesterday.
Michael Petrelis, a San Francisco activist who has been working with
Coburn since 1997 on what he calls "accountability issues," said he called the
congressman shortly after Hansen issued her news release. "How is she able to
take $200,000 and then lobby on that bill?" he asked.
Petrelis acknowledged that he has "no information" that Hansen was using
Ryan White money for her campaign for supervisor.
AIDS Legal Referral
Panel Executive Director Bill Hirsh said Hansen's resignation has nothing to do
with the dispute -- and, in fact, had been planned long before Coburn raised his
concerns over how the group spends its money.
LOAD-DATE: August 17, 2000
