The wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is playing a lead role on a national health care overhaul sits on the boards of four health care companies, one of several examples of lawmakers with ties to the medical industry.
Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, serves on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living, and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals, a financial disclosure report the senator released today shows.
Sen. Dodd is filling in for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will soon start work on a health care bill. Dodd will shepherd the legislation through the Senate.
Dodd, who as Senate Banking Committee chairman also has been an architect of the nation’s financial industry and housing rescue plans, did not file a new disclosure report outlining his personal finances as most other senators did in May. The Senate was releasing those reports Friday.
Dodd sought a 90-day extension to file his report covering last year, giving him until mid-August to submit his report, but released his report Friday to The Associated Press.
Other publicly available documents show Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company’s SEC filings.
Mrs. Dodd earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the needs of aging women.
The senator’s spokesman had no immediate comment on Mrs. Dodd’s board posts.
A complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, led the Senate Ethics Committee to begin looking at mortgages that Sens. Dodd and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., received from Countrywide Financial Corp.
The controversy involved a Countrywide “VIP” program for “friends of Angelo,” Countrywide’s then-chief executive Angelo Mozilo. The SEC filed a lawsuit this month accusing Mozilo of civil fraud and illegal insider trading.
Both senators have denied any wrongdoing. Dodd’s mortgages haven’t appeared in his public financial disclosure reports and didn’t have to because they were for non-rental homes; Conrad disclosed a Countrywide mortgage on a rental property but not one for a vacation home. (AP)
