The biggest scandal to emerge at the American Red Cross has so far gone little reported and acknowledged outside the nonprofit press. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that seven of the eight presidential appointees to the Red Cross board of governors have been chronic no-shows at board meetings. Six failed to show at a single meeting and the other attended only once.
What is especially striking is the failure of the Washington Post to call attention to this huge lapse in oversight. The article by Jacqueline Salmon "Senate Panel Faults Red Cross Board" (Feb 27) mentions lack of attendance, but does not draw the connection that among the worst offenders were the presidential appointees. Since the article does mention the dominance of the larger local chapters on the board, the continual vountary absence of the obvious counterbalancing force certainly seem relevant.
Even though the details were pointedly missing* from the materials he released to the Internet, Sen. Charles Grassley noted and criticized the absence of the presidential appointees, noting that it was a "bipartisan" problem carried over from previous administrations. That analysis overlooks the extreme change in the Red Cross working environment since 9/11. Even if board attendance was not common before, and certainly unacceptable, it became outrageous and inexcusable in the wake of the huge operating and leadership issues the organization has faced in the last five years.
*In Sen. Grassley's press release on February 27, 2006, he reproduces a letter from the Red Cross in resopnse to his earlier questions accompanied by eight large pdf files of information. However, a chart that the Red Cross supplied showing board member attendance (and mentioned in its response) is missing from the back up materials.
Despite its central, Congressionally mandated role in disasters (it was FEMA before there was FEMA), Sen. Grassley and others still treat Red Cross like an errant charity rather than a public instrumentality. This is nothing new: now available on the Internet is an article from The Nation in 1996 describing the politicization at the Red Cross under Elizabeth Dole (Linda Heller, "The Red Cross: A Question of Competence.") The issues were different then, blood supply rather than disaster response, but the skewed priorities in Red Cross oversight ring true today.
Here is the list of presidential appointees to the American Red Cross board of governors. Unless otherwise indicated, all are appointed April, 2005 with a term expiring in 2008. Of these, only the Chair attends board meetings regularly.
- Bonnie McElveen-Hunter (P) (Chairman), CEO, Pace Communications, Appointed: June 2004, Term expires: 2007
- Hon. Michael O. Leavitt (P), Secretary, US Department of Health and Human Services
- Hon. Michael Chertoff (P), Secregary, US Department of Homeland Security
- Hon. R. James Nicholson (P), Secretary, US Department of Veterans Affairs
- Gen. Peter Pace (P), Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Serving second term
- Hon. Condoleezza Rice (P), Secretary, US Department of State
- Hon. Carlos M. Gutierrez (P), Secretary, US Department of Commerce
- Hon. Margaret Spellings (P), Secretary, US Department of Education
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