Pack Voted to Protect Certificate of Need. Then He Sold the Portfolio It Made Valuable.
Campaign finance records and a publicly available transaction document raise conflict-of-interest questions about the WV GOP National Committeeman.
Larry Pack holds the position of National Committeeman for the West Virginia Republican Party. He previously served in the West Virginia House of Delegates. During his tenure in the House, Pack voted against repeal of the state’s Certificate of Need law. At the time of that vote, the WV GOP platform explicitly supported CON repeal as a free market healthcare reform. The current platform no longer addresses the issue.
Public records and a transaction document associated with the subsequent sale of Pack’s Stonerise nursing home portfolio indicate that his nursing home business stood to benefit materially from the continued existence of CON restrictions.
The CON Vote and the Platform
Certificate of Need laws require state approval before a healthcare provider can open a new facility, add beds, or expand services. The practical effect is limiting competition and protecting existing license holders from new entrants. The previous WV GOP platform backed CON repeal on free market grounds. Heather Glasko-Tully, a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates who worked on CON repeal legislation, described Pack’s floor speech against repeal as one of the most aggressive she witnessed directed at members of his own caucus.
Pack voted against CON repeal while serving as a Delegate. His vote helped preserve a regulatory framework under which he operated a portfolio of licensed nursing home facilities. Repeal would have allowed new competitors to enter the market. His vote prevented that.
The Stonerise Sale: What the Transaction Document Shows
A document associated with the sale of Pack’s Stonerise nursing home portfolio, published by Lument, a healthcare finance firm, cited West Virginia’s CON restrictions as a direct contributor to the portfolio’s value. The document noted that the state had issued no new nursing home licenses in the current century and that the resulting scarcity of beds drove occupancy above 90 percent across the portfolio.
The document also noted that West Virginia carries some of the highest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the country, a factor relevant to the portfolio’s revenue stability.
Taken together: Pack voted to maintain a government-enforced limit on competition in the market where he operated. That limit reduced the supply of nursing home beds in the state, drove up occupancy at existing facilities including his own, and was explicitly cited as a value driver when he sold the portfolio.
The Committee for Integrity in Government
A State Political Action Committee registered with the West Virginia Secretary of State under the name Committee for Integrity in Government is listed as active under the 2020 committee election cycle. Campaign finance contribution records on file with the Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Reporting System show the following:
Pack family members account for a significant share of the PAC’s funding. The PAC directed expenditures toward races involving Republican primary candidates. But not only Republican candidates. The PAC also used its funding to assist Democratic Party Mayor of Charleston, Amy Shuler Goodwin. Pack is not listed as an organizer of the committee.
Republican officials in West Virginia have raised concerns in other contexts about the use of PAC structures to obscure the source of political spending. The contribution records here are public and sourced directly from the Secretary of State’s system.
What the Records Show
The documented record contains three elements that, taken together, warrant scrutiny from Republican activists and party officials:
First, Pack voted against CON repeal while the WV GOP platform supported it, and while holding a direct financial stake in the industry the reform would have opened to competition.
Second, the transaction documents associated with his subsequent sale of that industry stake explicitly cite the regulatory protection his vote helped preserve as a contributor to the portfolio’s market value.
Third, campaign finance records show Pack family members as the primary funders of a PAC that directed money into Republican primary races.
Why This Matters
The WV WASP is not in the business of telling Republican activists who to support or which party figures to trust. That is not the purpose of this report.
The purpose is this: the West Virginia Republican Party has a stated interest in holding its own leadership to the same standards it applies to others. Pack occupies a formal leadership position within that party structure. The documented record raises a straightforward question about whether his conduct in office, his financial interests, and his use of political money are consistent with the role he holds.
Party activists and officials are in the best position to evaluate that question. The WV WASP published this report to make sure they have the information necessary to do so.
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