Political Advocacy
Your legislators want to hear from you .
| PRESIDENT ’ S PAGE |
M ost of us like to plan . It does not matter if it is our work day , a vacation or retirement . We correctly believe that it is easier to reach our intended goal if we have direction and a time frame to achieve our objective . Similarly , it is better to be proactive instead of reactive to situations that were not of our doing or choosing .
One of our associations most valuable benefits is political advocacy . Unfortunately for your government affairs committee , our lobbyists , and the staff that supports our advocacy efforts , the above paragraph is useless to all of them . In the current political climate the only plan seems to be to disagree , disparage and destroy anyone who opposes your position . It is very apparent that both parties are guilty . As the country and state that we live in become more partisan , it gets harder and harder to accomplish any type of legislative agenda . For us to be successful in our efforts , we need agents to reach out to their legislators .
Every year we send out legislative alerts to our membership asking them to contact their legislators and communicate with them about a bill that will impact insurance agents statewide . Your relationship with your legislators needs to be good enough that you can call them and discuss the situation with them . Your legislators do want to hear from you and they do need individuals that they trust to help them understand the consequences of their votes .
SCOTT STRONG KAIA President
It is not something I would want to do , but someone must run for each public office . I doubt many of the people reading this article want to serve in the legislature . It is easy to pick on politicians , but we owe them respect for their willingness to serve .
Look at things from the perspective of your legislator . If you were in the legislature , would you want constituents that were experts in insurance to explain the consequences of insurance-related legislation ? Or would you prefer to delegate this to just our lobbing team ? The best answer is a lot of both , but this will only work if individuals get involved . Our government affairs committee is the largest committee at KAIA . This is because we need a diversified reach across the state to communicate our message . The committee , our lobbyists and staff all work hard to get our message out , but we need help . We need your help . January and the start of a new legislative session will be here soon .
After beating up on our way of government , I am reminded of a quote from Winston Churchill : “ Democracy is the worst form of government , except for all the others .”
Contact Scott at sstrong @ strongsinsurance . com , or call KAIA at ( 800 ) 229-7048 .
2 KANSAS INSURANCE AGENT & BROKER | July - August 2018 |