Dems push for Ramstad to lead mental health, drug abuse agency

Rep. Jim Ramstad Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke

GOP Congressman Jim Ramstad has asked President-elect Barack Obama’s advisors to consider naming him to lead the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — and he’s enlisted top Democrats to help with his bid.

Ramstad, a Republican who is retiring this year after nine terms in Congress, approached Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) before Thanksgiving to discuss an appointment in the Obama administration. He would need support from Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, if Obama were to choose Ramstad to lead the $3.3 billion agency.

“Sen. Kennedy thinks very highly of Congressman Ramstad and feels that he is uniquely qualified to serve the country in this position,” a Kennedy spokesman said.

But Ramstad has also gotten support from allies in the House: Kennedy’s son, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) have encouraged Obama’s senior advisers to make the appointment.

A Rhode Island Democrat, Kennedy has had two conversations about Ramstad with Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Obama’s incoming chief of staff, and John Podesta, who is leading the transition team, a Congressional Democratic official familiar with the conversation said.

At an event last month at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Kennedy introduced Ramstad to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who Obama likely will appoint to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy jokingly introduced Ramstad to Daschle as the “next SAMHSA administrator,” a Congressional Democratic official said.

Although Ramstad’s name has been floated as the next “drug czar,” or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ramstad’s congressional allies believe that SAMHSA is a better fit and a more realistic possibility for the nine-term congressman.

The Kennedys and Ramstad have developed a close bond during the past few years borne from their experiences with addiction (Ramstad is Rep. Kennedy’s AA sponsor) and their work on legislation requiring insurance companies to provide the same coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical illnesses. Ramstad and Kennedy  are chairmen of the House’s bipartisan Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus.

In October, Congress approved Ramstad and Kennedy’s so-called mental health parity bill, which Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) initially championed before his untimely death in 2002. The bill was used as the vehicle to pass the $700 billion financial rescue package.

Ramstad may see less opposition as SAMHSA head than he would if named “drug czar.” While several interest groups oppose Ramstad as “drug czar,” sending a letter to Obama criticizing his opposition to needle exchange programs and medical marijuana, mental health and addiction advocates praised him.

“Appointing Jim Ramstad as SAMHSA director would raise the profile of addiction disorders within the agency,” Lizbet Boroughs, the deputy director of governmental relations at the American Psychiatric Association, said. “The past two administrators have been more mental health experts than addiction disorders.”

SAMHSA had not been decimated by budget cuts during the past decade or politicized. The biggest challenge is coordinating federal policy at the local level, Boroughs said.

Andrew Sperling, the director of legislative affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said Ramstad would be a “fantastic addition” to the agency.

Other advocates, however, had a more tepid reaction.

“It’s a mixed bag at best,” Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “On the one hand, heading SAMHSA would put him in a good position within the Administration to champion the cause of implementing ‘parity’ fully. And he would no doubt fight for higher overall levels of drug treatment spending and be able to build Republican support in Congress.”

“But at the end of the day the most important issue isn’t funding for treatment per se, but funding for quality treatment. For years Rep. Ramstad’s parity bills excluded methadone and other Opioid treatments proven by decades of research to be the most effective treatment for heroin addiction,” Nadelmann said. “This was a subject of dispute between him and Senator [Paul] Wellstone (who was the lead sponsor of the Senate version).”

Despite the buzz over Ramstad, his supporters acknowledged there are other candidates and that Obama is getting advice from other sources, including Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, an early supporter of Obama’s. Patrick has worked to increase spending on programs to help children coping with mental illness.

“Ultimately people have this is the president’s pick, at the end of the day,” the Congressional source said. “A lot of people are advising Barack and he will take a lot of suggestions from a lot of people and make up his own mind.”

A spokesman for Ramstad did not return phone calls for comment.

Related: Up in smoke: Will Ramstad’s faith-based earmark hurt his chances to win drug czar post?

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.