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==Background==
For years, Baptist Health Care has sought to move expand its service away from its main facility, [[Baptist Hospital]]campus, which is located near Pensacola's urban core and provides indigent care for a large number of low-income patients. The hospital averages about 50 percent occupancy at any given time,<ref name="newhospital">"Baptist plans new hospital." ''Pensacola News Journal'', January 15, 2004.</ref> and Baptist has sought to transfer some of its allowed acute medical care beds from Baptist Hospital to other branches in more affluent neighborhoods. However, such a transfer is only allowed after following the state's Certificate of Need process, overseen by the Agency for Health Care Administration, which has repeatedly denied requests by Baptist Health Care. Baptist officials have argued that the process is anticompetitive and overly regulatory, and that the ability to serve more "paying customers" would offset losses and increase their financial capacity to provide charity care.
In [[2000]], a state legislative amendment that would have benefitted Baptist Health Care with a specific Certificate of Need exemption was submitted (and quickly withdrawn) under State Representative [[Durell Peaden]]'s name, though he denied any knowledge of it and claimed "[a] lot of amendments get filed with my name on them … people think if they put my name on them, they'll pass."<ref name="hard2believe">"Editorial: Hard to believe amendment story." ''Pensacola News Journal'', May 17, 2000.</ref> Baptist admitted that their lobbyist authored the amendment, but would not identify the sponsor. State Representative [[Jerry Maygarden]] was suspected of submitting it, as he was a senior Baptist executive and an outspoken critic of the Certificate of Need process; he insisted, however, "that was not my amendment and that was not my language."<ref name="hard2believe"/>