e-Insight - April 2023 - Member

Government Relations on the State and National Level

While many find it interesting how the government functions on all levels, I find it sad. I have been around the state level 30+ years, the national level for at least four years, and the municipal level for six years. Time I will never get back. Involvement has never been more important than it is now, as legislator turnover is high and polarization (either far left or far right) is at an all-time high. I will go from low to high.

I have always believed that you cannot complain if you don’t participate. So, six years ago, I decided to run for Village Trustee in my town. I saw that we were a town growing extremely fast and wanted to help guide the town into the future responsibly and controlled. What I found was that our Mayor and other Trustees had agendas and didn’t always do what was best for the town and voted based on their own or someone else’s agenda, which most of the time benefited them. There were votes that I made that were not necessarily in my best interest but better served the town. I just couldn’t believe how influence and power hunger trickled its way down to the lowest levels of government. People ran to have power or to continually get re-elected and not to make their town a better, more attractive place to live and raise a family. Luckily, we do have a good town, but it is due to our fantastic schools and police force and is despite our leadership. I remember a time when the middle governed and people did things for the right reasons. This is when I walked to school up hill both ways (we had it soo tough).

We make the most impact as an Association at the state level due to direct involvement with legislators. Unlike municipalities where elected officials stay forever, the state level sees great overturn and change. When I first started with State in 1959 (feels like it), legislators got in and stayed for multiple terms, and Republicans worked with Democrats as they were pretty similar with slight differences. Gradually over time, that has changed, and Illinois has become almost exclusively Democrat, with middle-of-the-road democrats becoming more and more like the DoDo bird (extinct). For that reason, we constantly have to educate new legislators due to that turnover, which is at an all-time high. We also have to deal with the many nuances involved, as when we find a good and reasonable legislator the toughest part is getting them in a position to get re-elected. We are in unprecedented times in that the attacks on the free market, which helps drive down premiums, has never been under this much of an onslaught of bad legislation. Do not neglect to give to IIAPAC, as this is our main line of defense to stave off the crazy legislation being considered every new session. The real problem is when a very bad bill doesn’t pass, the Democrats look to primary those that didn’t support their initiative, and when that happens, the re-education effort has to start from scratch again. It has basically become Groundhog Day for Evan and the rest of us year in and year out. For example, a comprehensive Prescription Benefit Manager Bill was introduced at least ten consecutive years and then finally passed a couple of years ago. This year an auto rate regulation (Bad, Bad, Bad and one more Bad) bill has been introduced by a consumer group (even though it would harm consumers the most). This has been brought up on the national level for 20 years and never gotten traction on the state level as the states realized it was a bad deal. Now it is a real threat to pass, so we have coordinated with insurers, as well as many other stakeholders, to ensure that it doesn’t pass and theoretically kill Illinois’ competitiveness in the auto insurance marketplace.

Currently, we are 5th in size and 25th in rates in the country. Who in their right mind looked at this and thought, “Hey, we need to fix this.”? This is just one example of the craziness we are dealing with in Illinois. Imagine that this is a game of whack-a-mole, and we are playing with a tiny hammer. The more each member of the Association donates to IIAPAC, the bigger the hammer gets to wield in the whack-a-mole game. This helps us to support reasonable legislators against primary opponents. I guess Evan can look at this and say, “Hey, I’ve got great job security” - even though he would probably like to focus on passing great legislation that can make a difference for our industry and the consumers of Illinois. He has passed many things these last couple of years, but it is getting tougher and tougher to accomplish. He has been able to do this due to your past contributions and will continue to do these vital tasks with your future contributions. We must remember that one guy managed the bills that saw a vote pretty well for 40+ years, and he is no longer there, so many more bills are getting chances to see the day of light that would have never been put forward for a vote in the past. This isn’t necessarily bad, but Evan is now fighting the good fight on more fronts.

Lastly, federal governmental affairs are just as big, if not bigger, in importance. Remember, federal law trumps(pardon the pun) state law. So if we fight something off at the state level, but the federal government passes the same legislation, we lose, along with the other 49 states. So, our state effort will have been effectually for nothing. That is why it is just as important to contribute to InsurPAC (Big I). We were second in the Big I nation last year in contributions. That is huge and gives a seat at the grownups table. We send a contingency to the Big I Legislative Conference in April, which allows us to meet with various legislators and convey our concerns as an Association. This imparts how important the various issues are to our members, and the legislators hear it first-hand from Evan and the team.

All three of these governmental areas are about relationships. Unfortunately, the state landscape has made Evan make new friends every couple of years and try to establish some education, trust, and loyalty in a very short period of time. Municipality-wise, this governance has nothing to do with our Association’s concerns. State level has become a speed dating arena in that you have a short period of time to establish a relationship that potentially won’t exist in a few years. Federal is like that significant other you’ve dated for 25 years, so you have to find new Jedi mind tricks to accomplish the Association’s legislative goals. If you ignore State or Federal, even though they are two different animals, one of them may come back to bite you in the rear. In closing, let’s give Evan all that he needs to enable him to speed date and cultivate his long-term relationships. We won’t tell Lexi (Evan’s new fiancé).

As with anything in life, you need to participate, and that participation may only be a contribution, but that participation will exponentially increase our chances of success. If one of these bills that are bad for our industry and our consumers were to pass, you should ask yourself, “Did I give enough or participate enough?”. We all lose when these bad bills pass, and we will all win when they don’t pass.

As always, this is just Brett’s 5 Sense (hopefully, we get inflation under control and can return to 2), and I hope it was helpful. If you need any clarification or have any suggestions for future articles, please email me at bgerger@iiaofil.org.