Richard L. Jackson, who built a temp empire in Atlanta that provides doctors and nurses for short-term staffing, may be new to the game of wielding influence at the state Capitol. But one thing he has is the price of admission.
On Oct. 2, Jackson held a fundraiser for Gov. Nathan Deal at his 47,000-square-foot mansion in Cumming, which includes 20 bathrooms, an 18-hole golf course in the yard and a movie theater modeled on the Fabulous Fox on Peachtree. Jackson and his family contributed $54,080 to Deal, state records show.
That same month, his family contributed $51,400 to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and then helped host a fundraiser for Cagle in November at the Alpharetta offices of Jackson Healthcare.
For someone who doesn’t know where to park at the Capitol, Rick Jackson, just a month shy of his 60th birthday, suddenly is a player.
What does this man want?
“I attack big things,” Jackson says. “You either go big or you go home.”
Jackson is attacking two big things, and he would bring radical change to both: first, he seeks to privatize most of the state’s child welfare/foster care system, and second, he would take medical malpractice claims away from the courts and send them to an administrative panel. The two initiatives may not pass — and, if not for Jackson, might not even have come up — but the health staffing executive knows how to reach the ear of the powerful.
via From rags to riches to the levers of power | www.myajc.com.
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