Reliability. Integrity. Decorum.
Nine firms who applied for a two-plus year lobbying contract with the City of Stamford presented themselves as pillars of essentially the same values. In neatly printed letters, accompanied by lobbyists’ résumés, each promised to be a diligent, honorable servant in persuading policymakers on the city’s behalf.
But from the Stamford proposals, it’s clear not everyone puts the same price tag on their work. Not even close.
City Needs
The customer in this case, Stamford, has a legislative agenda that includes getting more state money for education and transportation projects, and solving its blackout-susceptible electricity infrastructure. Coming off a one-year contract with Elizabeth “Betsy” Gara and Associates, it received nine proposals by the Nov. 9 deadline for a government affairs contract that, once signed, would run through the end of the current legislative session and include all of 2008 and 2009.
Once the bids were in, five Stamford officials scored them independently, on the firm’s understanding of the city’s needs, experience, organization and cost.
So while the price wasn’t the only measure, it’s certainly the most quantifiable. Here were the bid amounts, from lowest to highest:
Elizabeth “Betsy” Gara & Assoc.: $90,000
TCORS Capitol Group: $95,400
The Kowalski Group: $122,854
Sullivan & LeShane: $150,000
Evans & Assoc.: $163,500
Gaffney, Bennett & Assoc.: $180,000
Murtha Cullina: $180,000
Brown Rudnick: $198,000
Camilliere, Cloud & Kennedy: $225,000
So not only was Gara the incumbent but in bidding $90,000 she offered the lowest price.
“We were confident we had done a good job,” Gara said in an interview.
That showed in her proposal, where the former Connecticut Business & Industry Association lobbyist detailed 15 positive legislative happenings for Stamford during her work for the city, including the passage of legislation giving towns more control over blighted properties and allowing them to conceal homeland security-related information.
When it came to price, Gara said she simply offered what she had been paid for the first year — $30,000 — and multiplied it by three.
“It wasn’t at all part of the strategy, it just seemed to be fair given the work,” she said.
Other firms bet they could get a lot more. For instance: The team of Anthony D. Camilliere, Christopher R. Cloud and Brendan J. Kennedy bid two-and-a-half times what Gara offered for her four-person team.
This didn’t seem to pay off. When it came time to scoring, the nearly quarter million dollar bid from Camilliere, Cloud & Kennedy finished sixth, ahead of only Kowalski, TCORS and — bringing up the rear — Evans & Assoc.
Another factor may have hurt the Camilliere crowd as well. Because of Stamford’s interest in revamping its electricity supply, Stamford was wary of hiring a firm with energy companies as clients, lest their priorities be subjugated.
Four of the firms -– Gara, Gaffney Bennett, Murtha Cullina and Sullivan & LeShane -– were invited in for interviews the week before Christmas. Robert L. Ruszkowski, purchasing agent, took notes.
Gaffney Bennett wasn’t an ideal choice because the firm represents Exxon Mobil Corp. and Northeast Utilities.
Though Murtha Cullina represented no energy companies, “a key member of the team was late,” Ruszkowski wrote. Isn’t showing up on time the first rule of a job interview? Points deducted.
That left Gara against Sullivan & LeShane. Though Gara offered the best price, Ruszkowski indicated that he was not pleased with the progress of the city’s funding proposals through the state Department of Transportation. He also wondered if Stamford needed a larger firm.
All five reviewers gave Sullivan & LeShane a score in the 90s. The firm asked for $40,000 this year, $50,000 for 2008 and $60,000 for 2009, making it $60,000 more pricey than Gara, but still less so than most others.
After the interview, Ruszkowski wrote, “This firm seems to have major connections in Hartford.” It was the strongest endorsement he gave anyone. Sullivan & LeShane won the contract and will officially be handed it shortly.
In an interview later, Ruszkowski put the Sullivan & LeShane choice simply: “They have very good access to the Governor’s office. But price was also an issue.”
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Dealing With The Elephant In The Room
Every fall and spring, when America’s top circus company returns to the home state of founder P.T. Barnum, there are animal rights activists lying in wait.
No doubt this will be true next week when “The Greatest Show on Earth” comes to Hartford.
Regular circus-goers may be used to seeing protestors by now, although some protestors cross the line, as evidenced recently when eight agreed to fines for interrupting a show in Barnum’s hometown of Bridgeport last fall.
But the real threat to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus isn’t the picketers outside the tent, it’s the suits inside the state Capitol. Animal rights supporters, particularly those from People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), may be known for shocking, attention-grabbing stunts, but the group’s lobbying work is crafty: It doesn’t push banning the circus outright — since one might as well try banning picnics or birthday parties — but instead continually offers up legislative proposals that would make the circus business financially untenable by removing its top selling point: elephants.
There are a bevy of examples from the last dozen years. A 1995 bill would have prevented elephants from being chained for more than two hours in any 24-hour period, making their participation on tour impossible. Another would have required that elephants be kept in a space only slightly larger than a typical railroad car –- the circus’s method of transport. A bill from last year would have created an “elephant inspection account” and $1,000 fee for animal cruelty.
The decade-plus long campaign appears to be grinding on the opposition.
“They’re like a little C.I.A. They have intelligence,” Carroll J. Hughes of Middletown’s Hughes & Cronin Public Affairs Strategies, said of PETA.
Harder Fight
Hughes has successfully fended off the save-the-elephants proposals for Feld Entertainment, parent of Ringing Bros., since 2005. But the fight isn’t getting any easier.
This year’s attempt to hinder the circus, he said, is “absolutely” the most serious. PETA and other animal rights supporters have proposed banning use of an ankus (often called a bullhook), a heavy baton with a metal hook on the end, to handle elephants. The device hurts elephants in PETA’s view, while Hughes says a properly used ankus is harmless and that banning it would make using elephants in Connecticut performances impossible. And without elephants –- its “core product” –- Hughes doubts the circus business can be profitable.
“The elephants are the number one card for drawing people to the circus. It’s the symbol of Ringling Bros.,” he said, noting the company’s logo.
“There is so much competition for entertainment. The thing that keeps it attractive and competitive is the elephants,” he added.
The two sides have entered into a sort of lobbying arms race. At a public hearing, animal rights supporters supplied a three-minute DVD with graphic images of elephant abuse to Environment Commmittee members and then trotted in a former Ringling Bros. employee, who detailed a gruesome 45-minute elephant beating that took place while she worked for the company.
Hughes has in turn talked about his client’s $5 million animal refuge in Central Florida and invited legislators for a behind-the-scenes viewing of the animals in the show and their treatment on May 10, the second day of the company’s stop in Hartford.
He also isn’t afraid to take shots at the competition. “Some of these people are fanatical terrorists,” he said.
Last week, the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee endorsed the measure to curtail the use of bullhooks to keep elephants in line.
What Hughes has yet to harness is the voice of the circus’s top customers, children and families, who he says are at-risk of being denied the opportunity to see the circus and see elephants up close. While local animal rights supporters –- including some of the same who were arrested last fall –- have come to the Capitol to lend their support, testimony for Ringling Bros. lacked real, live circus lovers, unless one counts someone from the “Outdoor Amusement Business Association” and the director of the “National Circus Fans Association of America.”
No doubt the crowds will come to the shows to vote with their pocket books, but will they also get on the phone to their local representative?
If not, when the “The Greatest Show on Earth” rolls into town next week, the Civic Center will be filled with Asian tigers and motorcycling clowns, but Hughes will be the one doing the acrobat work.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
No doubt this will be true next week when “The Greatest Show on Earth” comes to Hartford.
Regular circus-goers may be used to seeing protestors by now, although some protestors cross the line, as evidenced recently when eight agreed to fines for interrupting a show in Barnum’s hometown of Bridgeport last fall.
But the real threat to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus isn’t the picketers outside the tent, it’s the suits inside the state Capitol. Animal rights supporters, particularly those from People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), may be known for shocking, attention-grabbing stunts, but the group’s lobbying work is crafty: It doesn’t push banning the circus outright — since one might as well try banning picnics or birthday parties — but instead continually offers up legislative proposals that would make the circus business financially untenable by removing its top selling point: elephants.
There are a bevy of examples from the last dozen years. A 1995 bill would have prevented elephants from being chained for more than two hours in any 24-hour period, making their participation on tour impossible. Another would have required that elephants be kept in a space only slightly larger than a typical railroad car –- the circus’s method of transport. A bill from last year would have created an “elephant inspection account” and $1,000 fee for animal cruelty.
The decade-plus long campaign appears to be grinding on the opposition.
“They’re like a little C.I.A. They have intelligence,” Carroll J. Hughes of Middletown’s Hughes & Cronin Public Affairs Strategies, said of PETA.
Harder Fight
Hughes has successfully fended off the save-the-elephants proposals for Feld Entertainment, parent of Ringing Bros., since 2005. But the fight isn’t getting any easier.
This year’s attempt to hinder the circus, he said, is “absolutely” the most serious. PETA and other animal rights supporters have proposed banning use of an ankus (often called a bullhook), a heavy baton with a metal hook on the end, to handle elephants. The device hurts elephants in PETA’s view, while Hughes says a properly used ankus is harmless and that banning it would make using elephants in Connecticut performances impossible. And without elephants –- its “core product” –- Hughes doubts the circus business can be profitable.
“The elephants are the number one card for drawing people to the circus. It’s the symbol of Ringling Bros.,” he said, noting the company’s logo.
“There is so much competition for entertainment. The thing that keeps it attractive and competitive is the elephants,” he added.
The two sides have entered into a sort of lobbying arms race. At a public hearing, animal rights supporters supplied a three-minute DVD with graphic images of elephant abuse to Environment Commmittee members and then trotted in a former Ringling Bros. employee, who detailed a gruesome 45-minute elephant beating that took place while she worked for the company.
Hughes has in turn talked about his client’s $5 million animal refuge in Central Florida and invited legislators for a behind-the-scenes viewing of the animals in the show and their treatment on May 10, the second day of the company’s stop in Hartford.
He also isn’t afraid to take shots at the competition. “Some of these people are fanatical terrorists,” he said.
Last week, the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee endorsed the measure to curtail the use of bullhooks to keep elephants in line.
What Hughes has yet to harness is the voice of the circus’s top customers, children and families, who he says are at-risk of being denied the opportunity to see the circus and see elephants up close. While local animal rights supporters –- including some of the same who were arrested last fall –- have come to the Capitol to lend their support, testimony for Ringling Bros. lacked real, live circus lovers, unless one counts someone from the “Outdoor Amusement Business Association” and the director of the “National Circus Fans Association of America.”
No doubt the crowds will come to the shows to vote with their pocket books, but will they also get on the phone to their local representative?
If not, when the “The Greatest Show on Earth” rolls into town next week, the Civic Center will be filled with Asian tigers and motorcycling clowns, but Hughes will be the one doing the acrobat work.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Retailers Take Aim At Protecting Firearms Sales
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a nationally televised gun control speech earlier this month, the responding press release came from Newtown, Conn.
That’s the home of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobbying group for the firearms industry.
Oddly enough though, the group’s in-state location doesn’t mean local firearms retailers have more than a shot in the dark at stopping an annual barrage of ideas for restricting guns.
Every year the Connecticut General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee passes new restrictions on the use or sale of guns. Tears flow freely in the meeting room, as family members of homicide victims recount tragic human losses and how lax restrictions led to them.
This year is no different. At the committee’s April 10 public hearing, Southington’s Laura Bachman recounted the execution-style murder of her brother, performed with illegally owned weapons.
“My brother was killed in part because it is too easy to get guns in Connecticut,” she said.
In all, about 20 people submitted testimony supporting three bills that would require better reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
And from the more than 100 Connecticut firearms dealers? Nothing. Not a word. And this in the state where Samuel Colt and Oliver Winchester made their names. One has to wonder if either would have been able to grow his business here today.
Lock ’N’ Load
With that in mind, the gun retailers have had enough. About six months ago, 20 of them had a meeting and decided to form the Connecticut Association of Firearms Retailers.
Guy Bignell, president and CEO of the Greenwich gun shop Griffin & Howe, is its first secretary. He said Connecticut residents don’t realize the effect firearms sales have on the state’s economy, and points to figures from a national lobbying group showing that state firearms sales account for more than $40 million in annual retail sales and thousands jobs.
“We need to protect the industry in terms of its contribution to the economy,” he said.
Although he sells mostly hunting rifles and shotguns, he said “the minute you mention the word ‘gun,’ people think of Glocks and machine guns.”
That’s not a good image to be toting around at the State Capitol.
So not surprisingly, the group’s first order of business was to hire a lobbyist. On the same day as the committee hearing, they signed a veteran: Gary Costa, a consultant to the National Rifle Association who has been lobbying East Coast states for years.
“They came together simply because they saw that a lot of these bills were directed right at them,” Costa said of the gun retailers.
He said there was little point in going before the judiciary committee, calling it “a ridiculous waste of time”.
“What they’re doing in Connecticut is an attempt to hamstring legal business. They’re trying to make doing business difficult for the firearms retailer,” he said.
The harder step for gun control advocates has been the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has traditionally been more cautious in regulating firearms.
And this time, instead of just hunters and sportsmen and someone from the NRA on the other side, there will be a local industry there, talking about jobs and the economy.
“I mean, this is the home of the firearms industry of America,” Bignell said.
“We’re just a little late to protect Winchester.”
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
That’s the home of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobbying group for the firearms industry.
Oddly enough though, the group’s in-state location doesn’t mean local firearms retailers have more than a shot in the dark at stopping an annual barrage of ideas for restricting guns.
Every year the Connecticut General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee passes new restrictions on the use or sale of guns. Tears flow freely in the meeting room, as family members of homicide victims recount tragic human losses and how lax restrictions led to them.
This year is no different. At the committee’s April 10 public hearing, Southington’s Laura Bachman recounted the execution-style murder of her brother, performed with illegally owned weapons.
“My brother was killed in part because it is too easy to get guns in Connecticut,” she said.
In all, about 20 people submitted testimony supporting three bills that would require better reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
And from the more than 100 Connecticut firearms dealers? Nothing. Not a word. And this in the state where Samuel Colt and Oliver Winchester made their names. One has to wonder if either would have been able to grow his business here today.
Lock ’N’ Load
With that in mind, the gun retailers have had enough. About six months ago, 20 of them had a meeting and decided to form the Connecticut Association of Firearms Retailers.
Guy Bignell, president and CEO of the Greenwich gun shop Griffin & Howe, is its first secretary. He said Connecticut residents don’t realize the effect firearms sales have on the state’s economy, and points to figures from a national lobbying group showing that state firearms sales account for more than $40 million in annual retail sales and thousands jobs.
“We need to protect the industry in terms of its contribution to the economy,” he said.
Although he sells mostly hunting rifles and shotguns, he said “the minute you mention the word ‘gun,’ people think of Glocks and machine guns.”
That’s not a good image to be toting around at the State Capitol.
So not surprisingly, the group’s first order of business was to hire a lobbyist. On the same day as the committee hearing, they signed a veteran: Gary Costa, a consultant to the National Rifle Association who has been lobbying East Coast states for years.
“They came together simply because they saw that a lot of these bills were directed right at them,” Costa said of the gun retailers.
He said there was little point in going before the judiciary committee, calling it “a ridiculous waste of time”.
“What they’re doing in Connecticut is an attempt to hamstring legal business. They’re trying to make doing business difficult for the firearms retailer,” he said.
The harder step for gun control advocates has been the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has traditionally been more cautious in regulating firearms.
And this time, instead of just hunters and sportsmen and someone from the NRA on the other side, there will be a local industry there, talking about jobs and the economy.
“I mean, this is the home of the firearms industry of America,” Bignell said.
“We’re just a little late to protect Winchester.”
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Ethics Audit Gives Glimpse Inside Top Lobbyist
Rarely does one get to peek into the books of the largest, most lucrative lobbying firm in the state.
It is the uncommon chance to learn about a $10,000 American Express bill, an $8,000 retirement party, and dinners on the town with legislators, which neither lobbyists nor politicians usually like to discuss.
But the Office of State Ethics can audit up to 20 registered lobbying clients per year, choosing the unfortunate victims by lottery.
In October, it plucked a client of Gaffney, Bennett & Assoc. of New Britain, in all likelihood the biggest moneymaker in the state. (We can’t be sure because the ethics office has been unable to provide compensation numbers since 2004, when Gaffney Bennett brought in $3.8 million in total compensation.)
But the 13-page audit shows how very serious the OSE is about audits.
Combing through a three-year period from Oct. 1, 2003 to the same time in 2006, it found 17 transgressions of state rules made by the firm. That may sound like a lot, but there is nothing more sinister than handing in paperwork late or divvying up a dinner bill wrong, and the office plans to take no action.
So there are no scandals in the Gaffney Bennett audit, but it offers an excellent opportunity to see the changing place of entertainment, parties and dinners in the firm’s business atop the government relations market.
A Good Time
The audit makes clear that Gaffney Bennett has not been shy about entertaining, even if legislators and state employees pay their own way to avoid having to report gifts.
Witness the December 2003 retirement party for J. Brian Gaffney, a founder of the firm and former chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Connecticut campaigns for president. Held at the Shuttle Meadow Country Club, in Berlin, the event cost $8,075.88 for 142 people.
On the same day as his party (paid for by check), the firm paid off Gaffney’s $10,136.37 American Express bill.
Another party came after the Republican National Convention, in the summer of 2004, when the firm paid nearly $6,000 to host an “after-hours party” at a bar in New York City with a live band, sponsored along with ING and Northeast Utilities.
Dinners and lunches of $50 to $60 per person were commonplace. Gaffney took Patrick Downes, a deputy at the Department of Public Works at the time, and another guest to a $152 lunch on an island in Florida. Lisa M. Fecke, still lobbying for the firm, took Rep. Michael Caron (R-Killingly) and two other guests to Trumbull Kitchen for $155.
From a business perspective, is there any doubt that all the spending on food and drinks paid off?
Gaffney Bennett’s lobbying unit has been at the top of the heap since 1991, when its four lobbyists displaced Sullivan & LeShane as the state’s top moneymaker. Jay F. Malcynsky, managing partner of the firm, estimates that it has grown revenue 5-15 percent annually every year since its inception. It now has eight lobbyists, who handle business for at least 72 registered clients, and probably more that the state has yet to post.
The Last Sip
But the view that political lobbying is about throwing parties and taking people out to dinner couldn’t be more erroneous, particularly under the new rules, according to Malcynsky.
“The perception that this is an entertainment-based business couldn’t be more off the mark. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with a legislator,” he said. He pointed out that there were no state officials at events like Gaffney’s retirement party, just clients, colleagues and friends.
This is particularly true under the new campaign finance rules, not because the rules forbid the entertaining, but the paperwork needed to be in compliance has made some activities too much of a hassle.
The audit offers such an example from a 2005 appropriations committee party to which Gaffney Bennett gave $100. For years, lobbying firms have helped pay for legislative committees to hold “JF” parties, to celebrate having met the deadline for acting on most of their bills, by joint favorable report. Routine stuff: I help buy food for your party, you listen to me when I need to talk to you.
But the new rules require documentation of the per-person cost of the party, to ensure the money wasn’t actually a gift to a legislator or staffer.
That requires finding a guest list, determining each attendee’s position with the state (if any) and figuring out whether the firm’s donation amounted to more than $10 in spending per official.
Talk about a pain in the backside. So Gaffney Bennett has decided to stop contributing to JF parties altogether. That was music to the ear of Andy Sauer, executive director of Connecticut Common Cause, a good government group. “It shows a change of culture,” Sauer said.
Same thing with taking legislators out to dinner, Malcynsky said.
“Typically we don’t do that with legislators. I don’t think anybody does much of that any more,” he said.
He added that this isn’t the first time the firm has had to react to changing state ethics rules; constantly responding to them has become part of the business.
“It’s something that you have to place close attention to.”
Jonathan O'Connell is a staff writer for the Hartford Business Journal.
It is the uncommon chance to learn about a $10,000 American Express bill, an $8,000 retirement party, and dinners on the town with legislators, which neither lobbyists nor politicians usually like to discuss.
But the Office of State Ethics can audit up to 20 registered lobbying clients per year, choosing the unfortunate victims by lottery.
In October, it plucked a client of Gaffney, Bennett & Assoc. of New Britain, in all likelihood the biggest moneymaker in the state. (We can’t be sure because the ethics office has been unable to provide compensation numbers since 2004, when Gaffney Bennett brought in $3.8 million in total compensation.)
But the 13-page audit shows how very serious the OSE is about audits.
Combing through a three-year period from Oct. 1, 2003 to the same time in 2006, it found 17 transgressions of state rules made by the firm. That may sound like a lot, but there is nothing more sinister than handing in paperwork late or divvying up a dinner bill wrong, and the office plans to take no action.
So there are no scandals in the Gaffney Bennett audit, but it offers an excellent opportunity to see the changing place of entertainment, parties and dinners in the firm’s business atop the government relations market.
A Good Time
The audit makes clear that Gaffney Bennett has not been shy about entertaining, even if legislators and state employees pay their own way to avoid having to report gifts.
Witness the December 2003 retirement party for J. Brian Gaffney, a founder of the firm and former chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Connecticut campaigns for president. Held at the Shuttle Meadow Country Club, in Berlin, the event cost $8,075.88 for 142 people.
On the same day as his party (paid for by check), the firm paid off Gaffney’s $10,136.37 American Express bill.
Another party came after the Republican National Convention, in the summer of 2004, when the firm paid nearly $6,000 to host an “after-hours party” at a bar in New York City with a live band, sponsored along with ING and Northeast Utilities.
Dinners and lunches of $50 to $60 per person were commonplace. Gaffney took Patrick Downes, a deputy at the Department of Public Works at the time, and another guest to a $152 lunch on an island in Florida. Lisa M. Fecke, still lobbying for the firm, took Rep. Michael Caron (R-Killingly) and two other guests to Trumbull Kitchen for $155.
From a business perspective, is there any doubt that all the spending on food and drinks paid off?
Gaffney Bennett’s lobbying unit has been at the top of the heap since 1991, when its four lobbyists displaced Sullivan & LeShane as the state’s top moneymaker. Jay F. Malcynsky, managing partner of the firm, estimates that it has grown revenue 5-15 percent annually every year since its inception. It now has eight lobbyists, who handle business for at least 72 registered clients, and probably more that the state has yet to post.
The Last Sip
But the view that political lobbying is about throwing parties and taking people out to dinner couldn’t be more erroneous, particularly under the new rules, according to Malcynsky.
“The perception that this is an entertainment-based business couldn’t be more off the mark. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with a legislator,” he said. He pointed out that there were no state officials at events like Gaffney’s retirement party, just clients, colleagues and friends.
This is particularly true under the new campaign finance rules, not because the rules forbid the entertaining, but the paperwork needed to be in compliance has made some activities too much of a hassle.
The audit offers such an example from a 2005 appropriations committee party to which Gaffney Bennett gave $100. For years, lobbying firms have helped pay for legislative committees to hold “JF” parties, to celebrate having met the deadline for acting on most of their bills, by joint favorable report. Routine stuff: I help buy food for your party, you listen to me when I need to talk to you.
But the new rules require documentation of the per-person cost of the party, to ensure the money wasn’t actually a gift to a legislator or staffer.
That requires finding a guest list, determining each attendee’s position with the state (if any) and figuring out whether the firm’s donation amounted to more than $10 in spending per official.
Talk about a pain in the backside. So Gaffney Bennett has decided to stop contributing to JF parties altogether. That was music to the ear of Andy Sauer, executive director of Connecticut Common Cause, a good government group. “It shows a change of culture,” Sauer said.
Same thing with taking legislators out to dinner, Malcynsky said.
“Typically we don’t do that with legislators. I don’t think anybody does much of that any more,” he said.
He added that this isn’t the first time the firm has had to react to changing state ethics rules; constantly responding to them has become part of the business.
“It’s something that you have to place close attention to.”
Jonathan O'Connell is a staff writer for the Hartford Business Journal.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
A Shocking Approach To Lobbying A Lawmaker
There’s no shortage of gimmicks and handouts from lobbying groups trying to get legislators to understand their positions. Clean energy boosters give rides in a fuel cell-powered bus, while dairy farmers offer cheese samples.
But Jay Kehoe takes things a big step further. He Tasers people.
People like the head of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
Whom he took down with a Taser in the middle of a public hearing at the Legislative Office Building.
A former Glastonbury police officer, Kehoe is a lobbyist for Taser International, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. As an East Coast representative, he has been to Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and other states touting the safety and effectiveness of Tasers as a tool of law enforcement and self defense.
“Electronic defense weapons,” the unbranded term for Tasers, incapacitate a person’s muscles for five seconds by pumping an electric shock through two metal prongs that can be fired from up to 30 feet away.
The most basic version available, the Taser C2, looks like a plastic gun, sells for $299.95 and comes with a training DVD. You can get it in one of four snazzy colors: Black Pearl, Titanium Silver, Electric Blue or –- for the ladies — Metallic Pink.
Close to 10,000 Tasers are in use by law enforcement across the country. Unlike pepper spray, Kehoe argues, Tasers are effective no matter what part of the body they hit. Unlike guns, he says, Tasers are non-lethal.
“The Taser has never been identified as the cause of death for anybody,” he said.
Misconceptions
Kehoe’s job is made much more difficult by a handful of rather graphic displays of Taser abuse by law enforcement officials that have been posted on the Internet, many of which lead to glaring newspaper headlines and what he views as misconceptions among the public. When Kehoe came to testify in front of the General Assembly’s judiciary committee March 16, he said there were “all kinds of misconceptions” among committee members as to the danger of Tasers.
One of the people who has been watching those videos is Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D-East Haven), the committee’s co-chair. A former state prosecutor, Lawlor favors a bill restricting sale of the devices to law enforcement officials.
“I don’t think that private citizens should have them. It just isn’t appropriate,” Lawlor said. He and the committee are also considering a bill with new rules for police, aimed at preventing Taser misuse of the Internet-video variety.
So with the two anti-Taser measures on the table, Kehoe came to the committee to make his pitch. And, seeing Lawlor’s skepticism in his product, he made a bold offer, or one might say, a dare.
How would Lawlor like to be Tasered, right then and there?
Not one to back down, Lawlor accepted. In the middle of a room normally reserved for drawn-out judicial nominations, he removed his tie and dress shirt and stood ready in his undershirt.
Kehoe’s Taser performed as advertised. When the prongs stuck into his back, Lawlor let loose a groan and dropped hard into the waiting arms of volunteers immediately beside him like he was being saved by a televangelist.
Afterward Lawlor said it felt like he’d been mechanically and soundly punched in the back for five straight seconds, paralyzing him.
“There’s a little bit of blood on your T-shirt, but it doesn’t really hurt,” he said. Lawlor recovered in just a few minutes.
For Kehoe, the Tasering was an impressively bold move that brought terrific drama, but also a lot of risk. No matter how much he believes in his product –- and how clearly that belief is communicated by the demonstration –- isn’t there some risk to publicly decapacitating the committee chair?
Kehoe, who drives a Hummer with the license plate TASER, doesn’t think so. He said he’d done it thousands of times to prove the device’s safety.
“I’ve Tasered legislators, news reporters, judges. I’ve Tasered probably 3,500 people,” he said.
“You never truly understand it until you get a hit from a Taser.”
Unfortunately for the company, the device doesn’t seem to have had the intended political effect on Lawlor. He said that although the Taser was far less painful than a stun gun (which he has also experienced), if he had not had volunteers beside him he could have seriously cracked his skull on the fall.
“It didn’t really change my views. It’s not much different than I thought,” he said. n
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
But Jay Kehoe takes things a big step further. He Tasers people.
People like the head of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
Whom he took down with a Taser in the middle of a public hearing at the Legislative Office Building.
A former Glastonbury police officer, Kehoe is a lobbyist for Taser International, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. As an East Coast representative, he has been to Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and other states touting the safety and effectiveness of Tasers as a tool of law enforcement and self defense.
“Electronic defense weapons,” the unbranded term for Tasers, incapacitate a person’s muscles for five seconds by pumping an electric shock through two metal prongs that can be fired from up to 30 feet away.
The most basic version available, the Taser C2, looks like a plastic gun, sells for $299.95 and comes with a training DVD. You can get it in one of four snazzy colors: Black Pearl, Titanium Silver, Electric Blue or –- for the ladies — Metallic Pink.
Close to 10,000 Tasers are in use by law enforcement across the country. Unlike pepper spray, Kehoe argues, Tasers are effective no matter what part of the body they hit. Unlike guns, he says, Tasers are non-lethal.
“The Taser has never been identified as the cause of death for anybody,” he said.
Misconceptions
Kehoe’s job is made much more difficult by a handful of rather graphic displays of Taser abuse by law enforcement officials that have been posted on the Internet, many of which lead to glaring newspaper headlines and what he views as misconceptions among the public. When Kehoe came to testify in front of the General Assembly’s judiciary committee March 16, he said there were “all kinds of misconceptions” among committee members as to the danger of Tasers.
One of the people who has been watching those videos is Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D-East Haven), the committee’s co-chair. A former state prosecutor, Lawlor favors a bill restricting sale of the devices to law enforcement officials.
“I don’t think that private citizens should have them. It just isn’t appropriate,” Lawlor said. He and the committee are also considering a bill with new rules for police, aimed at preventing Taser misuse of the Internet-video variety.
So with the two anti-Taser measures on the table, Kehoe came to the committee to make his pitch. And, seeing Lawlor’s skepticism in his product, he made a bold offer, or one might say, a dare.
How would Lawlor like to be Tasered, right then and there?
Not one to back down, Lawlor accepted. In the middle of a room normally reserved for drawn-out judicial nominations, he removed his tie and dress shirt and stood ready in his undershirt.
Kehoe’s Taser performed as advertised. When the prongs stuck into his back, Lawlor let loose a groan and dropped hard into the waiting arms of volunteers immediately beside him like he was being saved by a televangelist.
Afterward Lawlor said it felt like he’d been mechanically and soundly punched in the back for five straight seconds, paralyzing him.
“There’s a little bit of blood on your T-shirt, but it doesn’t really hurt,” he said. Lawlor recovered in just a few minutes.
For Kehoe, the Tasering was an impressively bold move that brought terrific drama, but also a lot of risk. No matter how much he believes in his product –- and how clearly that belief is communicated by the demonstration –- isn’t there some risk to publicly decapacitating the committee chair?
Kehoe, who drives a Hummer with the license plate TASER, doesn’t think so. He said he’d done it thousands of times to prove the device’s safety.
“I’ve Tasered legislators, news reporters, judges. I’ve Tasered probably 3,500 people,” he said.
“You never truly understand it until you get a hit from a Taser.”
Unfortunately for the company, the device doesn’t seem to have had the intended political effect on Lawlor. He said that although the Taser was far less painful than a stun gun (which he has also experienced), if he had not had volunteers beside him he could have seriously cracked his skull on the fall.
“It didn’t really change my views. It’s not much different than I thought,” he said. n
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Some Lobbyists Say Land-Use Regs Are Just Hooey
In every Connecticut town, residents have a different idea about what they should see when they look out the window.
Should it be a city street? Suburbs? A forest? A farm?
But as towns take more of a say in how land should be used, business becomes more difficult for industries that require large tracts of acreage.
That struggle has united two industries, farmers and home builders, against the growing number of towns passing new rules limiting business’ use of land.
Farmers who have been working the same land for generations are facing new rules and proposed rules about how large they can build new barns, how they clear space for fields and how they control livestock and chickens.
“We’re seeing just more and more attempts to curtail how land use is utilized,” said Bonnie E. Burr, lobbyist for the Connecticut Farm Bureau.
For builders, keeping track of 169 different inklings isn’t easy. The group considers local zoning changes a severe clamp on business and a sort of war on suburbia. On the group’s Web site, one can learn about books such as “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”
Seeking Solon Solace
So as more towns become unhappy with what they see out their windows, more bills that would restrict land use have found their way to the General Assembly. One would give towns greater control over wetlands, which would keep farmers from clearing trees from and planting on certain parts of their land, and prevent developers from building anything there.
So it follows that the farmers consider groups like the Homebuilders Association of Connecticut important allies in the lobbying fight.
“They are usually with us because it’s about what you can do with the land,” Burr said.
Should the two groups win the land use battle however, don’t expect them to remain buddy-buddy too much longer.
Because it isn’t just ideological wetlands-lovers who are driving new rules in the legislature, it’s the people buying the new homes. Or, in other words, the customers of the homebuilders.
The influx of those who want nice, big pseudo-country houses in the formerly rural parts of the state drives big business to homebuilders. But they are the very same people who complain about farms to town leaders.
When they decide where to build their new homes, people love to choose romantic spots in the country. Looking out at a quaint family farm sounds particularly nice.
What they don’t realize –- or care about — is that those farms are businesses, and in a lot of cases struggling businesses that might need to make changes to stay afloat.
Agri-biz
Dairy farmer Paul Miller said a new rule in Pomfret has kept him from adding a new barn because of a restriction on building anything more than 10,000 square feet. He said residents complain about the noise of machinery and even the idea to change a stonewall fence, which might look nice, to a fence that functioned much better.
Meanwhile, he said he took out a $300,000 loan recently “just to pay the bills.”
“They want to be able to look at a nice green field, but they don’t want anyone to spread manure on it,” Miller said.
In some cases, the residents who pester town leaders to quiet down the local farms are also becoming the town leaders. That’s a problem for Burr.
In the Farm Bureau’s newsletter last month, the group complained that town officials today have no understanding of the farmer’s perspective.
“We can no longer assume elected officials have any farm experience at all,” it read.
Burr said fewer elected officials in both towns and the state have “hard experience with land use.” “It can take a while making sure they get trained,” she said.
Maybe residents would prefer that farmers like Miller would just go away, as they are doing in government. And maybe they will. But guess who’s calling the farmers on the phone, offering higher and higher prices for struggling farmland?
That’s right: the homebuilders.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Should it be a city street? Suburbs? A forest? A farm?
But as towns take more of a say in how land should be used, business becomes more difficult for industries that require large tracts of acreage.
That struggle has united two industries, farmers and home builders, against the growing number of towns passing new rules limiting business’ use of land.
Farmers who have been working the same land for generations are facing new rules and proposed rules about how large they can build new barns, how they clear space for fields and how they control livestock and chickens.
“We’re seeing just more and more attempts to curtail how land use is utilized,” said Bonnie E. Burr, lobbyist for the Connecticut Farm Bureau.
For builders, keeping track of 169 different inklings isn’t easy. The group considers local zoning changes a severe clamp on business and a sort of war on suburbia. On the group’s Web site, one can learn about books such as “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”
Seeking Solon Solace
So as more towns become unhappy with what they see out their windows, more bills that would restrict land use have found their way to the General Assembly. One would give towns greater control over wetlands, which would keep farmers from clearing trees from and planting on certain parts of their land, and prevent developers from building anything there.
So it follows that the farmers consider groups like the Homebuilders Association of Connecticut important allies in the lobbying fight.
“They are usually with us because it’s about what you can do with the land,” Burr said.
Should the two groups win the land use battle however, don’t expect them to remain buddy-buddy too much longer.
Because it isn’t just ideological wetlands-lovers who are driving new rules in the legislature, it’s the people buying the new homes. Or, in other words, the customers of the homebuilders.
The influx of those who want nice, big pseudo-country houses in the formerly rural parts of the state drives big business to homebuilders. But they are the very same people who complain about farms to town leaders.
When they decide where to build their new homes, people love to choose romantic spots in the country. Looking out at a quaint family farm sounds particularly nice.
What they don’t realize –- or care about — is that those farms are businesses, and in a lot of cases struggling businesses that might need to make changes to stay afloat.
Agri-biz
Dairy farmer Paul Miller said a new rule in Pomfret has kept him from adding a new barn because of a restriction on building anything more than 10,000 square feet. He said residents complain about the noise of machinery and even the idea to change a stonewall fence, which might look nice, to a fence that functioned much better.
Meanwhile, he said he took out a $300,000 loan recently “just to pay the bills.”
“They want to be able to look at a nice green field, but they don’t want anyone to spread manure on it,” Miller said.
In some cases, the residents who pester town leaders to quiet down the local farms are also becoming the town leaders. That’s a problem for Burr.
In the Farm Bureau’s newsletter last month, the group complained that town officials today have no understanding of the farmer’s perspective.
“We can no longer assume elected officials have any farm experience at all,” it read.
Burr said fewer elected officials in both towns and the state have “hard experience with land use.” “It can take a while making sure they get trained,” she said.
Maybe residents would prefer that farmers like Miller would just go away, as they are doing in government. And maybe they will. But guess who’s calling the farmers on the phone, offering higher and higher prices for struggling farmland?
That’s right: the homebuilders.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Ticket Scalping Less Shady
For many of us, it ranks among jaywalking and speeding as a crime that most of us wouldn’t mind breaking –- especially if we can make 20 bucks off it.
And it seems the General Assembly might agree, at least this time around.
Ticket scalping, long an important revenue stream for shady guys standing outside the Hartford Civic Center on event nights, has become big business for Web sites that allow consumers to buy and sell tickets online, and charge commissions for it.
Not surprisingly, many such sales are for more than the face-value of tickets, which makes them illegal in Connecticut (unless the difference is only $3 or less).
Scalping isn’t considered altogether kosher behavior, particularly when brokers buy large blocks of tickets with the sole intent of reselling them for more.
That was the feeling of Sen. Thomas A. Colapietro (D-Bristol), co-chair of the General Law committee, who said at a public hearing last month that he was worried that “only rich people” would be able to pay $200 for a $25 ticket.
“I’m worried about the guy that sleeps outside the ticket window to get his tickets so that the broker can make more money off of it,” Colapietro said.
The practice also raised the ire of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who pushed the online reseller StubHub to create a popup window on its site with a reminder that scalping by businesses or residents in the state was illegal. Sort of like a “Speed Limit: 55” highway sign.
It turns out that Connecticut has its own “ticket reseller” in Vernon, called Ticket Network, and that reseller has a lobbying firm (Murtha Cullina). Ticket Network facilitates ticket deals between brokers, as well as for the general public through the Web site Ticketliquidator.com.
More importantly, it employs 117 people.
Because the company is headquartered in Connecticut, Tickets Network is barred from facilitating scalping of Connecticut events.
“Basically, it was going to be too hard to operate it for Connecticut residents and comply with the law,” Nicholas Eve, an executive vice president for the company, said in an interview.
Of course resellers from other states, including StubHub (in California), eBay (same), Ticketmaster (New England headquarters in Massachusetts) and TicketsNow (Illinois) have no problem jumping in and jacking up the prices of UConn basketball games, Bushnell performances and, of course, Justin Timerblake concerts.
And soon after Murtha Cullina marched Eve before the committee to tell them he was losing business, scalping suddenly became less about ticket prices for the little guy, and more about jobs for the little guy.
Colapietro, who had been so skeptical about the fairness of the scalping business in mid-February, moved with the rest of the committee last week to completely remove the scalping ban, except for profit-making deals made within 1,500 feet of an event on the day it is taking place (meaning the shady guys will have to remain shady).
Because of an administrative screw-up, the bill would need to be attached to another measure to pass, but Colapietro said he would consider doing so, paving the way for the public to buy and sell tickets at whatever price they like (even if only rich people can afford it). This is okay with Colapietro, provided that the local companies make a buck.
“I just felt like our guys were being treated unfair,” Colapietro said, referring to the local reseller this time, not the consumer.
He even let it be known that he didn’t appreciate the lobbying efforts of Ticketmaster’s Michael Norton, who he said “looked like a butler.”
“This guy comes in from California or Massachusetts or wherever and tells us what we should be doing. I call him the butler,” Colapietro said.
If the bill does pass, Eve will enjoy the opportunity not only to drive over 65 from New Haven (where he lives) to Vernon every day, but to help consumers sell tickets at whatever price they like. He said research showed that scalping was low on a list of lawbreaking that the public didn’t approve of.
“Ticket scalping shows up pretty low on that list. After, I think, speeding,” he said.
It looks like he’s right.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
And it seems the General Assembly might agree, at least this time around.
Ticket scalping, long an important revenue stream for shady guys standing outside the Hartford Civic Center on event nights, has become big business for Web sites that allow consumers to buy and sell tickets online, and charge commissions for it.
Not surprisingly, many such sales are for more than the face-value of tickets, which makes them illegal in Connecticut (unless the difference is only $3 or less).
Scalping isn’t considered altogether kosher behavior, particularly when brokers buy large blocks of tickets with the sole intent of reselling them for more.
That was the feeling of Sen. Thomas A. Colapietro (D-Bristol), co-chair of the General Law committee, who said at a public hearing last month that he was worried that “only rich people” would be able to pay $200 for a $25 ticket.
“I’m worried about the guy that sleeps outside the ticket window to get his tickets so that the broker can make more money off of it,” Colapietro said.
The practice also raised the ire of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who pushed the online reseller StubHub to create a popup window on its site with a reminder that scalping by businesses or residents in the state was illegal. Sort of like a “Speed Limit: 55” highway sign.
It turns out that Connecticut has its own “ticket reseller” in Vernon, called Ticket Network, and that reseller has a lobbying firm (Murtha Cullina). Ticket Network facilitates ticket deals between brokers, as well as for the general public through the Web site Ticketliquidator.com.
More importantly, it employs 117 people.
Because the company is headquartered in Connecticut, Tickets Network is barred from facilitating scalping of Connecticut events.
“Basically, it was going to be too hard to operate it for Connecticut residents and comply with the law,” Nicholas Eve, an executive vice president for the company, said in an interview.
Of course resellers from other states, including StubHub (in California), eBay (same), Ticketmaster (New England headquarters in Massachusetts) and TicketsNow (Illinois) have no problem jumping in and jacking up the prices of UConn basketball games, Bushnell performances and, of course, Justin Timerblake concerts.
And soon after Murtha Cullina marched Eve before the committee to tell them he was losing business, scalping suddenly became less about ticket prices for the little guy, and more about jobs for the little guy.
Colapietro, who had been so skeptical about the fairness of the scalping business in mid-February, moved with the rest of the committee last week to completely remove the scalping ban, except for profit-making deals made within 1,500 feet of an event on the day it is taking place (meaning the shady guys will have to remain shady).
Because of an administrative screw-up, the bill would need to be attached to another measure to pass, but Colapietro said he would consider doing so, paving the way for the public to buy and sell tickets at whatever price they like (even if only rich people can afford it). This is okay with Colapietro, provided that the local companies make a buck.
“I just felt like our guys were being treated unfair,” Colapietro said, referring to the local reseller this time, not the consumer.
He even let it be known that he didn’t appreciate the lobbying efforts of Ticketmaster’s Michael Norton, who he said “looked like a butler.”
“This guy comes in from California or Massachusetts or wherever and tells us what we should be doing. I call him the butler,” Colapietro said.
If the bill does pass, Eve will enjoy the opportunity not only to drive over 65 from New Haven (where he lives) to Vernon every day, but to help consumers sell tickets at whatever price they like. He said research showed that scalping was low on a list of lawbreaking that the public didn’t approve of.
“Ticket scalping shows up pretty low on that list. After, I think, speeding,” he said.
It looks like he’s right.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Pulling The Trigger On 'Trigger Leads'
Don't look now but one of the most regulation-loathing industries out there is lobbying to get itself more heavily policed: the banks.
So much for the free market.
It seems some mortgage lenders have taken up the practice of buying leads from credit reporting agencies so they can poach the business of home buyers who are having their credit checks run. Customers who have decided on a bank for a mortgage find themselves getting ambushed by pitches from other lenders and marketers, offering (however implausibly) to beat whatever rate the customer has been offered.
Testifying before the Banks Committee, Rockville Bank President William J. McGurk said the practice allowed invasive lenders and brokers to siphon off business that the original banker had spent weeks or months developing, and compared the experience to setting tomato plants in the spring and nurturing them all summer.
"Then in August, somebody comes by and steals my nice, ripe, red tomatoes," McGurk said.
Either that, or the customer blames the bank for leaking their application information, which doesn't help in building customer trust.
"When a customer submits an application, they expect privacy," McGurk said.
So now the bankers are trying to crack down on themselves for using "trigger leads," as they call them.
The Connecticut Bankers Association had its lobbyists - CBA Vice President Thomas Mongellow and Richard "Fritz" Conway, of Gaffney Bennett -- help draft a bill that would prohibit brokers or lenders (a.k.a. the association's own members) from using leads from credit reports.
It seems a bit like asking mom to please stop allowing you to shoplift, and then spending a lot of money to convince her.
But state Rep. Ryan Barry (D-Manchester), co-chair of the Banks Committee, was happy to comply. An attorney whose clients include mortgage applicants, Barry said the practice amounted to "a trampling of people's privacy rights."
Clients "complain to me that they had gone through a bank for a mortgage, then within a day or two they had gotten an onslaught of offers by mail or by phone from other lenders or brokers," he said.
Also firmly in support are the usual industry watchdogs, Banking Commissioner Howard F. Pitkin and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, both of whom often find themselves on the other side of the banks when new regulatory ideas come up.
But not in this case. In addition to the Connecticut Bankers Association, other associations paying to keep their own members in line are the Connecticut Mortgage Bankers Association (another Gaffney Bennett client) and the Connecticut Society of Mortgage Brokers.
Conway said it could be that a lot of the trigger lead users were from out of state, but that he was sure that "some of the members that we have on board" were among the culprits, though they won't be raising their hands to identify themselves.
Source Of Contention
"There seem to be some who either used it at one time or know someone who used it," Conway said.
Same goes for mortgage brokers. Peter Spalthoff, executive director of the mortgage brokers group, said the use of trigger leads had become a source of contention between members, particularly because two credit bureaus, The Credit Bureau of Connecticut, in West Haven, and Strategic Information Resources, in Springfield, Mass., are members. The first is a sales agent for TransUnion, the second for Experian, two of three national firms that sell leads generated from credit checks. (The other is Equifax.)
"They are getting a lot of flak from the broker industry," Spalthoff said. He said he had received assurances from the two companies that they had no role in leaking or selling customer information, but that hadn't placated everyone.
"We've almost gone to our membership to dump them," Spalthoff said.
Not surprisingly, with all the regulators and all the banks behind it, the bill sailed through the Banks Committee last week. Rep. Barry said he hasn't heard opposition from anyone, much less any self-identified trigger lead users.
"Most of the firms I've talked to said they don't really use them," he said.
Jonathan O'Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
So much for the free market.
It seems some mortgage lenders have taken up the practice of buying leads from credit reporting agencies so they can poach the business of home buyers who are having their credit checks run. Customers who have decided on a bank for a mortgage find themselves getting ambushed by pitches from other lenders and marketers, offering (however implausibly) to beat whatever rate the customer has been offered.
Testifying before the Banks Committee, Rockville Bank President William J. McGurk said the practice allowed invasive lenders and brokers to siphon off business that the original banker had spent weeks or months developing, and compared the experience to setting tomato plants in the spring and nurturing them all summer.
"Then in August, somebody comes by and steals my nice, ripe, red tomatoes," McGurk said.
Either that, or the customer blames the bank for leaking their application information, which doesn't help in building customer trust.
"When a customer submits an application, they expect privacy," McGurk said.
So now the bankers are trying to crack down on themselves for using "trigger leads," as they call them.
The Connecticut Bankers Association had its lobbyists - CBA Vice President Thomas Mongellow and Richard "Fritz" Conway, of Gaffney Bennett -- help draft a bill that would prohibit brokers or lenders (a.k.a. the association's own members) from using leads from credit reports.
It seems a bit like asking mom to please stop allowing you to shoplift, and then spending a lot of money to convince her.
But state Rep. Ryan Barry (D-Manchester), co-chair of the Banks Committee, was happy to comply. An attorney whose clients include mortgage applicants, Barry said the practice amounted to "a trampling of people's privacy rights."
Clients "complain to me that they had gone through a bank for a mortgage, then within a day or two they had gotten an onslaught of offers by mail or by phone from other lenders or brokers," he said.
Also firmly in support are the usual industry watchdogs, Banking Commissioner Howard F. Pitkin and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, both of whom often find themselves on the other side of the banks when new regulatory ideas come up.
But not in this case. In addition to the Connecticut Bankers Association, other associations paying to keep their own members in line are the Connecticut Mortgage Bankers Association (another Gaffney Bennett client) and the Connecticut Society of Mortgage Brokers.
Conway said it could be that a lot of the trigger lead users were from out of state, but that he was sure that "some of the members that we have on board" were among the culprits, though they won't be raising their hands to identify themselves.
Source Of Contention
"There seem to be some who either used it at one time or know someone who used it," Conway said.
Same goes for mortgage brokers. Peter Spalthoff, executive director of the mortgage brokers group, said the use of trigger leads had become a source of contention between members, particularly because two credit bureaus, The Credit Bureau of Connecticut, in West Haven, and Strategic Information Resources, in Springfield, Mass., are members. The first is a sales agent for TransUnion, the second for Experian, two of three national firms that sell leads generated from credit checks. (The other is Equifax.)
"They are getting a lot of flak from the broker industry," Spalthoff said. He said he had received assurances from the two companies that they had no role in leaking or selling customer information, but that hadn't placated everyone.
"We've almost gone to our membership to dump them," Spalthoff said.
Not surprisingly, with all the regulators and all the banks behind it, the bill sailed through the Banks Committee last week. Rep. Barry said he hasn't heard opposition from anyone, much less any self-identified trigger lead users.
"Most of the firms I've talked to said they don't really use them," he said.
Jonathan O'Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Depositions On Deposits Return To Legislative Halls
In 1978, when the legislature was considering creating a bottle deposit program, a group of Teamsters drove beer trucks around the State Capitol in circles. The idea was to convince legislators not to create a bottle and can deposit program, an idea the Teamsters viewed a serious threat to business.
Among those trucking around was John Hollis, a driver for Hartford Distributors (an Anheuser-Busch affiliate) who doesn’t generally consider himself an environmentalist.
“I eat cooked owl for lunch,” he jokes.
This time around though, as the environment committee mulls an expansion of the deposit program, Hollis has joined the tree huggers. He said that in the 20-plus years since the law passed, more than 300 jobs have been created for warehouse workers, drivers and other positions involved in trucking and processing containers for deposit. Some drivers earn an extra $100 per week picking up the empties.
“Throughout the years, it’s worked. I was wrong,” he said.
Hollis is about the only one who has flipped sides in the battle over whether deposits should be required for containers of water and all other non-carbonated drinks, and whether the deposit should be raised to 10 cents, compared to the 5 cents currently offered for beer and soda containers.
Lined up on one side are some of the state’s biggest buyers of lobbying services, including Pepsi, Coke, Greenwich-based Nestlé Waters North America (owner of Poland Springs) and the Conn. Beer Wholesalers Assoc. Collectively, those companies employ the state’s biggest lobbying teams – Gaffney, Bennett & Associates, Robinson & Cole and Sullivan & LeShane — and none of them wants to see an extra 5 or 10 cents added to their products in Connecticut. They warn that the handling costs of the empties – which the Teamsters welcome - could add to the price of a bottle of water or juice.
Equally concerned are grocery sellers, who aren’t interested in having to store and handle thousands more bottles, as grocers from West Hartford, Manchester and Simsbury showed up to say.
Kids At Play
“None of the members in the association want to be in the garbage business,” said Carrie Rand-Anastasiades, contract lobbyist for the Connecticut Food Association.
On the other side are greenies like the local Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, which trotted in 20 enthusiastic middle- and high-school students from Farmington in green and white t-shirts. The environmentalists believe that recycling rates would be dramatically improved by offering a larger and expanded deposit.
“There’s no question that it’s an incentive for them to be picked up,” said Jessie Stratton for the Sierra Club.
Considering the bill is likely to pass the committee, as it did in 2005, the challenge for the big-money lobbyists, according to Gaffney Bennett’s Lisa Fecke, is to convince members of the House that there are too many other important items on the agenda.
The environmentalists, meanwhile, say they have a commitment from House Speaker James A. Amann (D-Milford) to bring the bill to a vote, and believe rank-and-file House members are coming around to the idea.
“The tide has turned…The people who weren’t with us are beginning to tell us they’re with us,” said Betty McLaughlin for the Audubon Society.
Muddied Waters
But as in most debates at the Capitol, the two sides aren’t as clear cut as one might think.
Even environmentally minded people wonder if the deposit system is really a good way of reducing litter. Most people find it inconvenient to drive trash bags of leaking bottles around to be returned, particularly if they have to cart them home from work first.
Business is not neatly aligned against the idea because of middlemen like the Teamsters and the state’s redemption centers, which collect the containers and sell the material. And considering the current fawning over “green” business, it’s not a great time to be seen as anything less than an energy-saving, fair trade-loving recycler.
Therein may lay a tiny opportunity for compromise. Brian Flaherty, a former state representative now a lobbyist for Nestlé, believes there are better ways to boost recycling (like an expansion of the curbside bin program), but said he wanted to distinguish the company from Coke and Pepsi as open to the idea.
“They’re saying no-no-no. We’re saying if you do it, realize what you’re doing to us. And take a look at what Connecticut’s recycling program really needs,” Flaherty said.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Among those trucking around was John Hollis, a driver for Hartford Distributors (an Anheuser-Busch affiliate) who doesn’t generally consider himself an environmentalist.
“I eat cooked owl for lunch,” he jokes.
This time around though, as the environment committee mulls an expansion of the deposit program, Hollis has joined the tree huggers. He said that in the 20-plus years since the law passed, more than 300 jobs have been created for warehouse workers, drivers and other positions involved in trucking and processing containers for deposit. Some drivers earn an extra $100 per week picking up the empties.
“Throughout the years, it’s worked. I was wrong,” he said.
Hollis is about the only one who has flipped sides in the battle over whether deposits should be required for containers of water and all other non-carbonated drinks, and whether the deposit should be raised to 10 cents, compared to the 5 cents currently offered for beer and soda containers.
Lined up on one side are some of the state’s biggest buyers of lobbying services, including Pepsi, Coke, Greenwich-based Nestlé Waters North America (owner of Poland Springs) and the Conn. Beer Wholesalers Assoc. Collectively, those companies employ the state’s biggest lobbying teams – Gaffney, Bennett & Associates, Robinson & Cole and Sullivan & LeShane — and none of them wants to see an extra 5 or 10 cents added to their products in Connecticut. They warn that the handling costs of the empties – which the Teamsters welcome - could add to the price of a bottle of water or juice.
Equally concerned are grocery sellers, who aren’t interested in having to store and handle thousands more bottles, as grocers from West Hartford, Manchester and Simsbury showed up to say.
Kids At Play
“None of the members in the association want to be in the garbage business,” said Carrie Rand-Anastasiades, contract lobbyist for the Connecticut Food Association.
On the other side are greenies like the local Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, which trotted in 20 enthusiastic middle- and high-school students from Farmington in green and white t-shirts. The environmentalists believe that recycling rates would be dramatically improved by offering a larger and expanded deposit.
“There’s no question that it’s an incentive for them to be picked up,” said Jessie Stratton for the Sierra Club.
Considering the bill is likely to pass the committee, as it did in 2005, the challenge for the big-money lobbyists, according to Gaffney Bennett’s Lisa Fecke, is to convince members of the House that there are too many other important items on the agenda.
The environmentalists, meanwhile, say they have a commitment from House Speaker James A. Amann (D-Milford) to bring the bill to a vote, and believe rank-and-file House members are coming around to the idea.
“The tide has turned…The people who weren’t with us are beginning to tell us they’re with us,” said Betty McLaughlin for the Audubon Society.
Muddied Waters
But as in most debates at the Capitol, the two sides aren’t as clear cut as one might think.
Even environmentally minded people wonder if the deposit system is really a good way of reducing litter. Most people find it inconvenient to drive trash bags of leaking bottles around to be returned, particularly if they have to cart them home from work first.
Business is not neatly aligned against the idea because of middlemen like the Teamsters and the state’s redemption centers, which collect the containers and sell the material. And considering the current fawning over “green” business, it’s not a great time to be seen as anything less than an energy-saving, fair trade-loving recycler.
Therein may lay a tiny opportunity for compromise. Brian Flaherty, a former state representative now a lobbyist for Nestlé, believes there are better ways to boost recycling (like an expansion of the curbside bin program), but said he wanted to distinguish the company from Coke and Pepsi as open to the idea.
“They’re saying no-no-no. We’re saying if you do it, realize what you’re doing to us. And take a look at what Connecticut’s recycling program really needs,” Flaherty said.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
High-Fives For Amann From Tobacco Lobby
The speaker of the house recently lambasted the governor’s plan to raise taxes, taking specific aim at her idea to raise the cigarette tax $0.49 to two bucks a pack.
Saying the proposal “nickeled and dimed the poor again,” James A. Amann (D-Milford) indicated that such an increase would unfairly target low- and moderate-income people, who buy more cigarettes.
No one disputes the speaker’s assertion that cigarette taxes disproportionately generate revenue from the poor. But if Amann’s comments are a valiant effort to protect the poor, one would expect to see progressive lobbyists high-fiving each other in every corner of the Legislative Office Building.
But they’re not.
That’s because groups that lobby on behalf of the poor aren’t opposing the cigarette tax increase. Their lobbyists aren’t pushing charts and talking points the speaker’s way. They’re not sending out legislative alerts to members. Many of them have not even taken a position on the issue.
“We haven’t really come out with a stance on it,” said Lucy Nolan. Nolan lobbies for End Hunger Connecticut!, where she is executive director, and is also chair of One Connecticut, a faction of more than 100 poverty-fighting organizations. She said the issue came up briefly at a recent meeting of lobbyists for the poor, but that it was bypassed for issues people felt strongly about.
One Connecticut sent a letter last week to Amann and other legislative leaders about key poverty-fighting issues, and barely mentioned the cigarette tax increase.
“People were sort of split on the cigarette tax,” Nolan said.
Wallet V. Wellness
There is good reason for that. While a higher cigarette tax would target poor people’s wallets, it would also probably improve their health –- and lower their health care costs –- by encouraging them not to smoke.
That’s the feeling at CT Voices for Children, which has hired former Dannel Malloy running mate Mary Glassman as a lobbyist, but also has not opposed the cigarette tax increase.
“That sort of deterrent to smoke is even more significant for kids,” said Douglas Hall, a CT Voices for Children researcher.
“We don’t want to see kids smoking cigarettes, obviously, so from that perspective it’s a good thing.”
Same idea at Legal Assistance Resource Center, in Hartford, where lobbyist Jane McNichol is the executive director.
“We still felt it was very hard to get away from the public health benefits,” McNichol said. That doesn’t mean she thinks it’s a good idea; Nolan, McNichol and Hall all decreed tobacco taxes as regressive and unreliable, but McNichol said her organization “would not be opposing it.”
So if lobbyists paid to represent the poor aren’t opposing the cigarette tax increase, why is the speaker doing so in their name?
Strangely, although the speaker’s comments aren’t supported by the do-gooder community, they are being echoed in chorus by free market groups and tobacco companies.
Americans for Prosperity, a Washington anti-tax group, released comments pointing out that tobacco taxes “are frequently borne by low-income Americans.”
A similar group, FreedomWorks, e-mailed around comments such as this: “When times get tough for hard-working families in Connecticut, they have to cut expenses and pinch pennies.
Why shouldn’t families expect the same from their government?”
Tobacco companies don’t love having their lobbyists in the newspaper (lest they end up like Nick Naylor, kidnapped and covered in nicotine patches), but R.J. Reynolds spokesman John Singleton, also offered nearly the same argument as Amann.
“It’s really a working man’s tax. It adversely affects low- and moderate-income individuals, in our view,” he said.
The similarity is striking. It leads one to wonder if the speaker is serving more as a mouthpiece for industry than as an advocate for the poor.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
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