Dr. Jill McCabe is the Democrat seeking to unseat Sen. Dick Black in the 13th district. This is her first run for office and her elevator pitch is rather standard fare:
“I’m running for Senate because I am inspired by the idea of making a greater impact in our community,” McCabe, who also chairs the Loudoun Country Day School Board of Trustees, said in a statement. “Healthcare, public policy and business are intersecting now more than ever. I believe that my experience as a health professional, a working mother and an education leader have helped prepare me to tackle the challenges facing the Commonwealth today. From affordable healthcare to full-day kindergarten, we have a responsibility to give our children the very best Virginia has to offer.”
I usually don’t look to government to give children the best of anything, but that’s a different post…
Dr. McCabe recently posted some solid fundraising numbers, which allowed her, again, to restate her campaign platitudes:
“I got into this race because I care deeply about my community. As an emergency room doctor who sees people on their worst day, it’s my job to make sure I am giving my patients the best possible care I can — and to make sure that I am always fighting for them.”
Yes, it’s a rich tapestry. But inside the good Doctor’s fundraising totals were a few donations — totaling $5,500 — that raise eyebrows.
The donations come from the Marquardt family of Utah. Never heard of them? They own and operate something called Management Training Corporation (MTC), a company that operates private prisons under government contracts and “claims to be the third-largest private prison operator in the country.”
Fair enough.
But MTC and the prisons it oversees have had a number of problems, some of which have resulted in investigations of sexual abuse of prisoners, poor living conditions, and poor health care for detainees.
One of the more troublesome of those facilities is the MTC-operated Willacy Detention Center in Texas. Originally it was a general detention center for illegal immigrants but after a DHS investigation, was reclassified to only house illegal immigrants with criminal convictions.
In February 2015, 2,000 inmates staged an uprising at the Willacy facility over the work conditions and health care. They took over the prison for two days, and made a grand mess of the place. No wonder:
The facility has a notorious history — despite it being only nine years old. In 2011, PBS’s Frontline featured the facility in the documentary “Lost In Detention.”
Twana Cooks-Allen, a former mental health coordinator at Willacy, was quoted as describing circumstances including, “women harassed for sexual favors, guards taking detainees and beating them, running them down like they were animals.” Other detainees alleged routine sexual, physical and racial abuse at the hands of correctional officials. Indeed, in 2011, a former guard named Edwin Rodriquez pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a female detainee. And in 2007, employees of MTC at Willacy were charged with smuggling undocumented immigrants across the southern border.
It appears, however, the problems have continued. Last year the ACLU released a report on Willacy that proved prescient. “One man told us that fellow prisoners had threatened to burn the tents but rationalized, “What’s the point?” the report said. “Prisoners are bored, listless, and frustrated by the conditions, and the atmosphere, they say, is tense and could escalate at any time.” The ACLU report went on to catalog various complaints from inmates at Willacy, including cramped living conditions, little privacy, overflowing toilets, lack of water and inadequate medical treatment. A local newspaper in Texas reported that rioting inmates complained “they weren’t getting the medical care they needed.”
All of which brings us back to Dr. McCabe.
Dr. McCabe has been taking a hard-line against Sen. Black over criminal justice reform and social issues. Nothing wrong with that. But considering the national headlines surrounding MTC, her line of attack could easily be described as hypocritical. Stunningly so.
Perhaps it’s a rookie mistake. The campaign’s messaging is out of step with the campaign’s fundraising. Messaging and background conflicts happen all the time (see the hilarious example of Democrat Dan Gecker). But one has to wonder, given the content of a fundraising appeal from Attorney General Herring on McCabe’s behalf. It hit Black hard on social issues — the usual litany of abortion, rape, sexual assault and more. It was pretty good copy for its purpose.
But considering the MTC allegations, Dr. McCabe may want to reconsider her fundraising hook…and perhaps take the beam out of her own eye before seeking to remove the mote in another’s.
