Dr. Irv Lerner, a retired oncologist, opines in the Star Tribune about one of the most intriguing wars at the Capitol: The current moratorium on the construction of any new cancer radiation facilities.

The Star Tribune titled Lerner’s piece, “Moratorium on radiation facilities seems not to have patients in mind.” That’s an understatement. I’ll get to that, but first some background. Because, dear readers, if my memory serves, this is the first time the radiation oncology war has appeared in the paper.

There are two combatants. Minneapolis Radiation Oncology (MRO) and Minnesota Oncology Hematology (MOHPA). Under current Minnesota law, MRO has a monopoly on radiation therapy facilities. MOHPA wants to build competing facilities.

The moratorium MRO passed into law years ago reads that radiation therapy facilities may “be constructed only by an entity owned, operated, or controlled by a hospital licensed according to sections 144.50 to 144.56 either alone or in conjunction with another entity.” Only MRO qualifies under that bit of legalese.

MRO’s monopoly on radiation treatment in Minnesota is a serious cash cow.

How much cash? I don’t know, but the amount has to be staggering. Consider the most salient statistic: Half of all Minnesotans will need cancer treatment at some point in their lives. No health care provider in his or her right mind will deny radiation treatment for cancer. Medicare won’t. Obamacare won’t. Radiation treatment must be worth millions — if not gazillions — of dollars.

Several years ago, I poured over Campaign Finance Board (CFB) reports trying to figure out how much money MRO was spending.

Here are some of my calculations. [The following numbers do not include the 2010 election cycle.]  Since 1998, the CFB has kept searchable donor database reports online. From these reports, one can learn that MRO founder Dr. Robert E. Haselow, and his wife, Justine Haselow, contributed $458,325 to Minnesota political candidates, parties and party units. Other doctors at MRO contributed at least $64,600.

Then there are the aggregate contributions of the other doctors, their wives and their employees who have also given money in the process. Money that’s tough to trace, given our current reporting system. Next you have to look at the contributions made by trade associations, their members and their members’ employees.

Complicating matters further are the contributions made by registered lobbyists for the various groups. Lobbyists registered for MRO are here; those registered for MOHPA are here. Capitol insiders will recognize serious lobbying power in the representation of both groups.

In his Star Tribune op ed piece, Dr. Lerner politely wonders “if there might be a connection between the passage of the moratorium and the push to extend it and the fact that MRO had the sixth-largest lobbying expenditures in the entire state in 2010.”

“Connection?” Yes, but not exactly.

Direct causation? Yes, exactly and absolutely.

MRO has spent millions of dollars on Minnesota legislators and political parties to preserve and extend their cash cow monopoly on radiation treatment.

To be  clear. There is nothing illegal about what Dr. Haselow and the others who want to keep MRO’s radiation therapy status quo have done. They have legally worked the system the Legislature designed. But the fact that one couple has contributed close to half a million dollars to protect the family livelihood is not only breathtaking, it’s unprecedented.

A quick summary of the policy arguments by both sides. MRO argues that we have enough radiation therapy services under current law; MOHPA contends that more facilities are needed.

The free market capitalist in me has to believe that the more radiation services that are available, the lower the price the delivery of those services becomes.

MRO gives to the legislators and parties in power. That means both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of being bought by MRO. Worse, highly respected legislators in both parties have carried the MRO’s bills.

I’ve always maintained that Minnesota politics are pretty clean. They are. But I consider the greedy radiation oncologists to be one of the most glaring exceptions to the clean politics rule.

As previously noted, the monopoly MRO currently owns on radiation treatment facilities has to be worth a fortune.

Hopefully, somebody else has the knowledge and the time to figure out how many zeroes are in that fortune.

Another round of kudos to the Star Tribune’s Tony Kennedy for continuing to chip away at what I call the “University Salary — and Payout — Iceberg.”

Here’s the story. “Records obtained by the Star Tribune show that [former U of M President Bob] Bruininks, who will earn a $341,000 salary in his new faculty role there, directed at least an additional $355,000 in university funds to the Center for Integrative Leadership since 2009.”

Bruininks may no longer be President of the University, but it appears he’s still a BMOC.

Bruininks’ on the record response? “You put it all together in a weird way and it may look like I’m feathering a next, and that’s simply not the case.”

Gee, ya think?

As best I understand Bruininks’ feather defense is that the money he channeled to the U’s Center for Integrative Leadership (CIL) was used to leverage a million dollar contribution from Marylin Carlson Nelson.

Let me respectfully suggest that Carlson would have made the contribution regardless of who was doing the asking. After all, Carlson chairs the CIL. Further, the U’s “Carlson School of Management and the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs share oversight of the center.” [For those of you who may be new to town, the "Carlson" in the School of Management is Marylin Carlson Nelson's late father, Curt Carlson, who wrote the big check that funded the school. The Carlsons are uber contributors to Minnesota's civic life.]

For the record, I’ve got nothing against Bruininks.  I had many a chat with him over the years. I really enjoyed getting to know him and his better half, Susan Hagstrom, on former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s trade mission to China in 2005. Bruininks was the oldest guy in the group of us who climbed the highest on the Great Wall of China. From my perch as an alum of the College of Liberal Arts and the Law School, Bruininks seemed to do an ok job running the U.

But, really, Bob? You just finished a tenure as President of the U from 2002-2011. In that position, you made $733,421 a year. [Plus you had no mortgage or expenses to pay while you were  living at Eastcliff.]  Then,  you received $455,000 last year to take year-long a break for the purpose of “assisting [your] return to the University.”

Now you’re going to make $341,000 (plus a benefits package that has not been disclosed) in your new faculty role at the CIL. And you finessed another $355,000 out of mystery funds — while you were President — to take care of long-time staffers.

I may have two degrees from the University, but even I had to look up what “Integrative Leadership” is. According to your website, Integrative Leadership is “leading across sectoral, cultural and national boundaries for the common good [emphasis mine].”  Umm, ok.

The CIL’s mission?

The Center for Integrative Leadership’s mission is to discover and disseminate transformative knowledge about the nature and practice of leadership across business, government, and civil society sectors to advance the common good [emphasis mine].

Given all the money you’ve made from the University — and what I’ve totaled doesn’t include the millions more you’ve made in your long career at the U — here’s my question:

What’s the common good in paying you $355,000 a year to teach a couple classes?

Instead of being the BMOC, couldn’t you try to be the MGMOC (the Most Gracious Man on Campus)?  Offer to do the work for lots less? Maybe butt out, altogether?

After all, “butting” out is why you found half a million in other funny money to pay former U of  M – Duluth Chancellor Katherine Martyn to leave, to “butt out,” to not run the school “from the bleachers.” Your words. And finally,”it was better for her and better for the campus and more cost-effective for the U.”

[Is it ok to get rid of the BWOCs but not the BMOCs?]

The fact that you — and so many others — in the behemoth that is the overpaid University Administration don’t see a problem in the appearance of “feathering the nest” … that the facts are somehow put together in a “weird way” ….

Well, all that does not bode well at all as you and the others work on “integrative leadership.”

For the Common Good. Of course.

Super good on the Star Tribune’s Tony Kennedy and Jenna Ross for their story, “U execs are paid handsomely on their way out.”

As someone who spent 20-some years at the Capitol, and on the attendant social circuit with many muckety-mucks from the University, I finally get to publicly tell them how tiresome it’s all been listening to their gripes about state funding and their cheap shots at GOP legislators and officials who have questioned the U’s funding and priorities. [B*tching and suing about the route the LRT should take through the University, anyone?]

Tiresome because only higher education insiders understood the big picture.  Which includes, as the Star Tribune details, the major complainers making big six-figure salaries and “earning” half million dollar pay-outs.

All cloaked under the veneer that somehow, most of these people would be making the same kind of money in the private sector. You could almost see the wheels in their heads turn, “As long as we keep harping on what’s good for the students, and how much the University means to our state’s economy, people won’t think to examine how lucrative the University has been to our livelihoods and our personal economies.”

Buried in the comments to the story, here’s a real gem:

“I really tire of this “best and the brightest” argument, as far as pay and benefits. The reality is that many of these administrators are the best at … working the system.”

That commenter nails it. Most of these people came up through the system because they became good at working the system.

And, they’ll be damned if they’ll let other people scrutinize — let alone change — the system until they’ve cashed out.

Which is why everyone needs to start questioning other University-related news like why former GOP House Speaker and current U of M Regent Steve Sviggum “has to go,” according to many at the University. It ain’t about Sviggum’s day job at the Minnesota Senate. It’s about the fact that he was (and should continue to be) a threat to the payola that is the University Administration. Worse, for decades the University Administration has been able to guard all the money secrets because the University Board of Regents has functioned merely as a rubber stamp, not as a true board of directors should function. Questioning things.

Back to my headline.  The salaries and payouts published in today’s paper are the tip of the iceberg. There are LOTS more people making big six figure salaries, with accompanying retirement benefits and payout packages that boggle the mind.

It’s all there in the public records. I’m hoping that Kennedy and Ross already have them all piled on their desks and that this, their first story, is also…just the tip of the University iceberg.

I must confess. I didn’t watch any of the “We won’t confirm Ellen Anderson as chair of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC)” debate. But if, for some magical reason, I was on the Senate floor during that debate, here is what I would have said:

Members. I’m going to shock some of my Republican Senate colleagues. Probably even more of my DFL ones.

I’m voting to confirm Anderson.

Why? I believe that elections have consequences. That constitutional offices, by definition, have consequences. The office of governor of the great state of Minnesota confers certain powers on the person who holds it. The governor gets to decide who should serve in his or her [never mind, still waiting] administration. The governor gets to choose people who generally ideologically agree with him. In choosing Anderson, that’s what Dayton did.

I don’t agree with some, if not much, of Anderson’s renewable energy agenda — which has now proven to be untenably expensive. Or bashing traditional energy sources. Former GOP Governor Tim Pawlenty once did, but he backed off on that when it was no longer politically expedient. But worth noting as an aside is that Pawlenty’s leadership on the Renewable Energy Standard is what made it law. This past muddies the waters, here, now.

But our state constitution — much like the federal government’s — in this capacity is about making sure people who are appointed by the top dogs are qualified to hold the job. I can’t argue that Anderson doesn’t know the regulatory energy turf. So, I won’t. Anderson does. Dayton won. He gets to choose.

But I will point that we’ve arrived at a simply awful place in our democracy. We are rejecting both Presidential and gubernatorial appointees purely on politics.

I will also point out most Republicans — and rightly so — believe this course of action was started by Democrats. And it was. Federally, with Bush judicial appointees.

And here in Minnesota. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in modern state history, the first appointee to be rejected by the Senate was Steve Minn as Commissioner of Commerce under Jesse Ventura. That had something to do with a certain DFL state senator who had it in for Minn. The details of which I’ve long forgotten. But those details had nothing to do with Minn’s capacity to serve as Commerce Commissioner.

Under Pawlenty’s tenure, the DFL Senate rejected three of his appointees. Rich Stanek. Over some routine court hearing in his past when he was a street police officer asked to provide testimony about what someone said to him. That person used a highly inflammatory derogatory name for people of color, and Stanek repeated what he was told, under oath. As required by a court of law. As I recall, Keith Ellison led the charge on that one. I also recall a weird hearing full of untrue innuendos. Stanek withdrew before the DFL Senate had a chance to un-confirm him.

Then there was Cheri Pierson Yecke. Pawlenty appointed her to be the Commissioner of Education. I never really understood why. Her views on intelligent design were bound to be a lightening rod. And they were.

Finally, there was Carol Molnau as Commissioner of Transportation. I’m still sort of shocked when I hear good DFL friends blame her for the I-35 bridge falling down. Nope. That disaster was decades in the making. [I still pity Molnau. Pawlenty -- in his quest for higher things -- was ultimately responsible for what happened to her.]

My point? Yes, indeed, I think Republicans are in a good position to argue, “Payback!” today.

But should we?

I think not. To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn… Likely in our lifetimes, we’ll encounter a GOP governor, again, who needs to get his or her [finally!] appointees through the Senate.

I hope those future DFL senators think about what I’m saying here, today.

Enough.

Let the record show that it was a Republican who first said on this Senate floor:

We are here only to weed out the unqualified. Anderson is not that.

To my Republican colleagues. Yes, I recognize we’ve wandered in the oppressed minority for almost four decades. Bad things happened. But, today? Most of the public doesn’t remember those things. We will look like petty partisan fools if we reject Anderson, today. Let’s swallow our pride, and our sense of retribution, and not do that.

Finally, Democrats? I may be in a wheelchair or dead the next time a GOP governor deals with a DFL Senate. Or it could only be in a few years.

Let the record show:

It was a Republican who had the guts to get up and say on this Senate floor:

Quit the party politics in the confirmation process.

Thank you. And vote to confirm Ellen Anderson to chair the PUC.

At first blush, former GOP House Speaker Steve Sviggum serving as communications director for the Senate GOP Caucus would appear to some to be a “conflict.”

According to our state’s largest newspaper, “Sviggum’s employment has put him in a situation fraught with conflict of interest.”

To that I ask, really? Is that a road we really want to travel? How about all those legislators who also work for other units of government? Does that mean they, too, have to abstain from public service if they have another government job? They certainly are voting on many issues — including funding — that affect those other governmental units.

That rules out the teachers, the professors, the public defenders, the assistant county attorneys, the government-paid-for economic development people. That weeds out the legislators who work for nonprofits that benefit from appropriations made by the legislature. [There are hundreds (and hundreds) of local nonprofits who receive millions of dollars in pass-through federal and state government funding.] Goodbye to legislators who work for companies that have received major state bailouts over the years.

And, while we’re at it, let’s — rightfully — impute that conflict to the spouses of anyone who serves as an elected member or staff to the legislature. Let’s impute that conflict to their children, their parents, their grandchildren, heck…their lovers, their best friends. Let’s impute that conflict to the converse of all the afore-mentioned: Their enemies.

But perhaps worst of all, our state’s major newspaper, when opining about its own conflict of interest in keeping the Vikings at the Metrodome, writes:

“(Disclosure: At one time the Vikings had an option to buy the Star Tribune property for $45 million. Although the option expired, the value of the property is likely to be affected by the stadium decision.)”

In my book, $45 million translates into the Star Tribune being much, much more than merely “affected by the stadium decision.”

Pot: “Kettle.”

Kettle: “Really, really black.”

Life is inherently full of conflicts. Life works when conflicts are exposed and can be accounted for.

If the Star Tribune thinks Sviggum should quit, then the Star Tribune should quit opining about the Vikings Stadium.

Both conflicts are in the public domain.

But one media corporation with a $45 million conflict has no business chastising a person with a  $102,000-a-year conflict.

Unless, of course, that media corporation wants to disclose its own conflicts in any editorial it writes about conflicts.

An aside, which I may or may not pick up on later. From what I hear, Sviggum is a fantastic addition to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents. Sviggum is asking questions. Good ones.

He’s no shill for University politics as usual. Which seems to be the modus operandi at the University: The Board serves as a high profile rubber stamp to a too-top-heavy and much-too-much-insulated University Administration. Methinks THAT might be driving the move to get rid of Sviggum on the Board.

And there’s an awful lot of multiple six-figure-salaried administrators at the University who aren’t happy about Sviggum asking questions. [Maybe the Star Tribune editorial board should ask the news department to look into that story.]

Sorry. Can’t help myself. I end with my usual mantra. Follow the money.

OR, get rid of all the conflicts at the Capitol.

The place will be empty. Except for the cafeteria staff and the janitorial squad.

Perhaps the biggest player in financing a new Vikings stadium with “new” gambling revenues is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: Caesar’s Entertainment Corporation (formerly known as Harrah’s Entertainment).

Caesar’s is a private gaming corporation that owns and operates over 50 casinos, hotels and golf courses. It is the largest gaming company in the world with yearly revenues of almost $9 billion dollars.

Viva Las Vegas! Go Vikes!

About a dozen years ago when the racino proposal was being considered at the Capitol, then-Harrah’s was very much a player. Harrah’s hired the late, much beloved former DFL Rep. Chuck Brown as its lobbyist. [Brown by the way, died from heatstroke wearing a heavy clown costume on a hot August day. For those who knew Brown, it was a horrible but fitting way to leave this world.]

What I remember about that time around the Capitol was that the jokes about who owned Canterbury stock were funny at first. Then they became terrifying to people working on the issue. Why? Because some people working the issue were, indeed, owners of Canterbury Park stock. And, as noted by former DFL Rep. Jim Farrell in comments on my Facebook page, “Some of those shareholders are former and current legislators, both Democrats and Republicans.”

[For the record, many highly ethical people were also working on that deal then and now.]

Harrah’s, which has been buying gaming properties across the country for decades, wanted a piece of the Minnesota gambling action back then. And now?

In 2012, the racino stakes are exponentially higher. If the state finances a Vikings stadium with racino money, vested state “participation” — in the form of an airtight decades long contract with the state — makes Canterbury Park and Running Aces Harness Park incredibly and incalculably attractive purchases.

It sure ain’t about the horses.

[Canterbury Park and Running Aces like to tout they need video and slot machines (racino) because the increased purses will make Minnesota competitive with other racino tracks around the country and the "additional money will improve the economics of horse racing [which] will substantially grow the economic impact associated with Minnesota’s racing, breeding and overall horse industries.”]

Racino and Vikings stadium supporters will argue that the state can structure a racino deal so that a Viva Las Vegas! / Caesar’s scenario cannot happen. Could that deal be struck? Maybe yes and definitely No.

The most operative fact is whether the companies are publicly or privately held. A publicly held company’s board of directors has a duty to shareholders to do what’s in the best interests of its shareholders. A publicly held company has no duty to the state in which it operates, let alone to its citizenry. If $9 billion-a-year-in-revenue Caesar’s Entertainment wants to buy Running Aces and / or Canterbury Park for a good price, it’s tough to see how a responsible board of directors could turn down that deal.

Running Aces is owned by a privately held company, North Metro Harness Initiative LLC, based in Chester, West Virginia. At first blush, it would appear that because it’s a private company, it could enter into a “won’t sell to a monstrously huge gaming operator” for the duration of time the racino helps pay for a Vikings stadium.

But not so fast. According to the New York Times, publicly traded Southwest Casino Corporation owns 50% of North Metro’s stock. I’m not sure, exactly, what that means in terms of North Metro’s legal ability to commit not to sell.

On to Canterbury Park. Make that Canterbury Park Holding Corporation, publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol CPHC. You can find a list of the current major Canterbury shareholders in the latest Proxy Statement. Wonder who else owns Canterbury stock?

To be clear: If the state authorizes racinos, there is no way a deal could be struck that would prevent Canterbury from selling to Caesar’s.

Viva Las Shakopee! Go Vikes!

Obviously, I believe allowing racinos in Minnesota and opening the door to Caesar’s is a colossal public policy mistake. However, if we’re going to have this conversation, can someone please insist on complete disclosure by all interested parties? Who is all getting paid by whom?

Follow the money.

I truly don’t mean that to be an insulting headline. However, this is the first story I’ve read in years in major Minnesota media that starts naming names and questions facile assumptions.

Perhaps the most facile assumption is that “racism” against the tribes is what drives those who support other forms of gambling. That’s BS. It’s about the money.

And, remember, I don’t support other forms of gambling (or any government-sanctioned / government-enabled gambling). But I do think it’s time to call out the BS on all sides of this debate.

All of this is not about a new Vikings stadium. It’s not about reparations to tribes for sins committed multiple generations ago. It’s not about helping the horse industry in Minnesota.

It’s about who is making the money now. It’s about who wants to make the money in the future.

Follow that.

Kudos to Tony Kennedy of the Star Tribune for starting the conversation in a venue a bit larger than my blog. [She says “a bit,” facetiously.]