🔒DiPentima hones CBIA’s lobbying game plan ahead of potentially tumultuous budget session

In the midst of a historic pandemic that’s battered Connecticut’s economy and left gaping holes in upcoming state budgets, deciding to leave a private-sector career to become the face of business interests at the state Capitol might seem like a risky move for most people.

Not Chris DiPentima.

The recently named CEO of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) says he’s fully aware of the challenge ahead, where he could be on the opposing side of lawmaker proposals to increase business taxes to help close projected billion-dollar deficits in the years ahead.

But DiPentima says he has no regrets about leaving his former job as president of Pegasus Manufacturing, an aerospace components maker that his father founded in the late 1980s, to lead the state’s largest business association.

“It’s a tough situation, but I’ve faced tough situations running businesses as well,” DiPentima said in a recent interview. “Do you run away from a challenge, or do you embrace it as an opportunity to maybe do things differently, do things better, and come out stronger?”

DiPentima has been involved with the CBIA for nearly two decades as a business and/or board member, but that long history doesn’t mean the former aerospace exec will bring the same old playbook into legislative battles.

But he also doesn’t plan to reinvent the wheel either.

Through CBIA’s recently launched Rebuilding Connecticut marketing campaign, which seeks to influence the legislative agenda in the coming year and beyond, the association is focused on putting out more positive messaging about the impact its member companies have on their communities and employees’ lives, and pointing out that tax hikes could diminish those benefits.

“We want to be an organization with faces — behind each job is an individual and their community,” DiPentima said. “The concern about taxes is that some feel it’s easier to raise them on companies because it’s not affecting individuals, when in fact you are.”

That’s just one of the shifts happening within CBIA of late. There are other signs of change to its communications and policy strategies, some noticeable and some subtle.

For example, CBIA isn’t endorsing candidates in state legislative races this year, something it’s done going back at least a decade.

Instead, CBIA will publish the names of lawmakers who sign a new policy pledge, which lays out the group’s 2021 legislative priorities.

The one-page document lists 11 bullet points focused on workforce development, urban renewal, more favorable tax policies, transportation funding, and greater use of nonprofits to provide services on behalf of state agencies, among other topics.

As of press time, more than 75 legislative candidates had signed the pledge.

DiPentima said that’s a good start, but CBIA — whose membership includes a wide variety of small and large companies across multiple industries and with different interests — will be tracking whether the pledge system proves to be more effective for his membership’s interests than the prior endorsement strategy.

Several Democratic committee co-chairs have signed the pledge, which could be seen as a bipartisan win for CBIA, since its endorsements in the past have leaned Republican.

Collaborative strategy

DiPentima has been working closely in recent months with his predecessor, Joe Brennan, who delayed his June retirement plans to help CBIA navigate the pandemic fallout and leadership transition.

Despite Brennan’s soft-spoken demeanor, CBIA experimented with a more aggressive approach early in his five-year tenure as CEO. In 2016, CBIA, in reaction to recent tax hikes at the time, turned heads by forming a political action committee that ultimately made more than $550,000 in independent expenditures to support a largely Republican slate of legislative candidates, helping the party gain three Senate seats and eight House seats. CBIA abandoned that tactic in 2018, choosing to spend its money advocating for business-friendly policies rather than donating to specific campaigns, something that will continue.

DiPentima has high praise for Brennan, whose leadership style he described as even-keeled and thoughtful, but willing to fight when the situation called for it.

“Joe has been aggressive at times and he’s encouraged me to do the same thing, and if we need to be aggressive we will be, but until then, we want to be part of the solution and work collaboratively,” DiPentima said.

Rep. Matt Ritter (D-Hartford), who is expected to become House Speaker next year, is not among those who have signed CBIA’s new pledge.

But he said he hopes to work collaboratively with the association and DiPentima.

“You have two options as an advocacy group: You can be so strident in your views that you’re just always a ‘no,’ … or you work with both sides of the aisle to find compromise,” Ritter said. “There are issues where I think CBIA has done that in the past and I hope they’ll continue.”

Ritter also said the state’s $3-billion Rainy Day fund balance should serve to alleviate some of the budget pressures in the upcoming session.

“We’re so much better off than we were, say 12 years ago, when the Rainy Day fund was zero and we had to borrow $800 million for operating costs,” he said. “There are improvements and it’s important to point that out and make note where Connecticut has improved. Sometimes it seems that no one wants to accentuate the positive.”

Growth in dynamic, difficult times

As CBIA looks ahead to 2021, DiPentima said he’s pleased with the health of the organization itself.

Given the prolonged economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBIA could certainly be in a much worse position — many chambers of commerce around the state have faced declining memberships and budget constraints amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Making matters worse, CBIA and other business associations were not eligible for Paycheck Protection Program stimulus funds, which provided a financial lifeline to many small businesses.

At least one group — the influential Business Council of Fairfield County — actually ceased operations in March.

However, despite the state’s economy running at an estimated 15% to 20% below normal after shedding nearly one-third of its GDP over the spring, the CBIA has actually added to its membership ranks during the past seven months, DiPentima said.

“[CBIA] has at least held its own, if not gotten stronger,” he said.

DiPentima said the CBIA generated goodwill in the early months of the pandemic by offering webinars and other content free of charge to non-members, some of whom decided to join over the summer.

CBIA, which had a $5-million budget in fiscal 2018, would not divulge its current membership count for this story, describing it only as in the “thousands.”

It had 7,000 members in fiscal 2015, which was the last year it disclosed the number in its not-for-profit IRS tax filing.

CBIA did say it is currently running about 10% ahead of its 2020 membership growth goal, which was set before the pandemic hit the state.