"I’m the Candidate Running Against Lee Carter."
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“I’m the candidate running against Lee Carter.”
That statement perked my ears. I was at an event introducing industry representatives and lobbyists to the Republican candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates. Some of the candidates were impressive ... some less so.
When Ian Lovejoy made this statement, it received applause and laughs. The incumbent, Delegate Lee Carter, is running for his first re-election campaign in a district that was purple and now leaning blue in the Manassas area of the state. Carter has had the distinction of being very antagonistic to business, especially the insurance industry, introducing at least four bills – HB 1747, HB 1748, HB 1749 and HB 1750 – that would turn the Virginia workers compensation system upside down and overturn over 100 years of court rulings. Not only that, but during the session, Delegate Carter refused to meet with any industry representatives who wanted to explain their positions on the legislation. And of course, the proposals introduced were a direct result of some personal experiences of the delegate with no apparent interest in making the system better for workers.
I remember during the session feeling obligated to support anyone who runs against Delegate Carter. Again, IIAV’s positions generally don’t have a "D" or an "R" associated with them, and we side on the consumer side about as much as we side with our company partners. Moreover, there are reasons that Virginia’s workers compensation system runs rather smoothly — with admittedly some hiccups — but it does have over 100 years of case law that business, industry and workers can rely on. Thankfully, none of the bills Delegate Carter introduced passed, and none got out of committee. However, his antagonism to our industry was apparent.
Sometimes you just have to take a stand. I’m walking out on a limb with this, but generally speaking, lobbyists don’t take an active stand against an incumbent. Moreover, it’s unusual for a trade association to actively support a challenger to an incumbent, but I have to ask myself: if we don’t actively support the opponent to Delegate Carter, what position should we take?
IIAV is hosting a fundraiser/meet-and-greet for candidate Ian Lovejoy. I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve received from lobbyists saying that while they support Lovejoy, their corporate position is to not contribute to candidates who are opposing an incumbent. That’s why we even changed the event to a “meet-and-greet” with no expectation of contributions to Lovejoy.
That all said, the icing on the cake is that candidate Lovejoy is a great business candidate and will likely be a thoughtful legislator.
IIAV is a 501(c)(6) business league with an associated political action committee — VAPAC. We support business candidates who support the independent agency system. Again, we support candidates regardless of their party — in fact, in the coming weeks we will be hosting a fundraiser for a Democrat who is on the House Commerce & Labor Committee and generally works very well with Joe Hudgins and me at the legislature.
So again: sometimes you have to take a stand. When someone says, “I’m the candidate running against Lee Carter," they deserve our active and open support.
Robert N. Bradshaw, Jr., MAM
IIAV President & CEO
