Pryor also touted his record as attorney general on nursing home protection. He said those accomplishments include backing a bill that included a 400 percent increase in penalties for nursing home violations resulting in deaths.

The bill raised the civil penalty the attorney general can levy against nursing homes for violations from $10,000 to $50,000 per occurrence for violations resulting in deaths, he said.

Hutchinson, a Republican, and Pryor, the Democratic nominee, face off in the Nov. 5 election for the U. S. Senate seat Hutchinson holds.

The attorney generalÍs campaign cited votes cast by Hutchinson in October 1995 and July 1997. The 1995 vote eliminated nursing home standards signed into law by former President Reagan in 1987 and cut Medicare funding by $270 billion, Pryor said.

"Families all over Arkansas have loved ones in nursing homes , but when it came to protecting them, Tim Hutchinson said, ïNo,Í " Pryor said.

Hutchinson campaign spokesman Anthony Hulen responded that the 1995 vote was "for the first balanced budget in nearly 30 years. " PryorÍs attack on HutchinsonÍs vote "is surprising coming from a candidate trying to portray himself as a conservative," Hulen said.

Pryor campaign spokesman Michael Teague said that the balanced budget supported by Hutchinson and other Republicans was unnecessarily harsh in its spending cuts. PryorÍs father, former U. S. Sen. David Pryor, DArk. , helped write the 1987 federal standards and also opposed the 1995 GOP balanced budget, Teague said.

ArkansasÍ other U. S. senator at the time, Democrat Dale Bumpers, in an Oct. 28, 1995, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article, described the GOP plan as "just a shop of horrors. "

Hulen didnÍt dispute that the 1995 vote for a balanced budget also would have eliminated federal nursing home standards. In a Nov. 2, 1995, Democrat-Gazette article, Republican lawmakers said their proposal would end "expensive and counterproductive" federal nursing home regulations. States still would have been required to maintain safe standards to receive federal money, GOP lawmakers said at the time.

Republicans including Hutchinson, a U. S. representative in 1995, at the time disputed DemocratsÍ accusation about "cuts" to Medicare. GOP lawmakers said under their plan Medicare spending still would have increased, just at a slower rate.

Hutchinson also in 1997 voted to cut $37 billion from Medicare payments to nursing homes, Pryor said. Hulen said the vote was for a balanced budget agreement supported by 85 senators, including Bumpers. President Clinton signed the balanced-budget bill into law in August 1997.

"We knew Mark was getting desperate in his attempts to scare seniors, but we didnÍt expect him to take on our former senior senator," Hulen said.

Hulen said Hutchinson in 1999 voted to restore $48 billion in unintended Medicare provider and benefit cuts resulting from the 1997 balanced-budget act. Also, Hutchinson was a co-sponsor of a bill that this year would have restored more cut nursing home funding, Hulen said.

Teague said that "Tim Hutchinson is now admitting he regrets that 1997 vote because here, in an election year, he says heÍs working to restore funding “ the same funding that he cut. "