For lobbyists, it’s tough enough to satisfy all the issues and goals of one client. But what about balancing the objectives of one client that in turn is the voice of roughly 10,000 businesses in the state?
That’s the charge of Bonnie Stewart and the other in-house lobbyists for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. Stewart said the job isn’t as difficult as it may initially appear however.
“It isn’t really that hard because the basic issues are the same for every company,” she said. “It’s always about the cost of doing business, getting a skilled workforce, making sure that workforce has a place to live and can commute to work and maintaining the infrastructure.”
Because of those basic business principles, Stewart said issues like transportation, taxes and health care are continually at the forefront and the focus for CBIA’s in-house team. For the upcoming session, the CBIA has 13 in-house employees registered as lobbyists.
Though there may be some matters that only involve a certain segment of CBIA’s members, the most trying aspect of the lobbying is not between its thousands of members. It is attempting to convince legislators to make decisions and vote in a manner that is conducive to business.
“One of the big problems we’ve been facing more lately is the fact that very few of the legislators have any knowledge of business,” said Stewart. “They don’t understand the real negative impact they could potentially have on our ability to retain business in Connecticut and attract new companies.”
With Connecticut’s General Assembly as a part-time legislature, most legislators have lives beyond their political ones.
“The goal was to have people in the legislature with real-life experience to make good, informed decisions,” said Stewart. “The legislators come from all different areas doing different types of things but one of the problems is that many don’t come from the private sector. They don’t understand sometimes what they’re doing with business.”
That situation has led CBIA to switch up its lobbying tactics. Stewart said the organization is going to refocus its efforts on educating legislators on the basic business principles and ideas that companies agree on. This can be in the form of one-on-one meeting with legislators, seminars or group meetings with CBIA officials.
“We used to get into much more issue-orientated discussions on specific issues, but we’ve moved on to discussing the basics of business,” she said. “It’s important they understand what’s working and what’s not working now before looking at new legislation.”
For the upcoming session, there are several issues that Stewart anticipates being on the docket that come as no surprise to her, such as labor costs and health care. There is one developing issue that the CBIA is preparing to strongly support that may appear odd at first: education.
Specifically, Stewart said the CBIA is in full support of the state’s recent proposal to increase the threshold for graduating high school.
“People forget that for the business community to thrive, there needs to be strong education and we’re starting to talk about it,” she said.
The CBIA has always been involved with local high schools and colleges, but a decision to strengthen curriculum requirements is considered vital to the workforce’s next generation.
“In 2005, nearly 20,000 students that graduated high school in Connecticut and went to college here had to take remedial courses,” said Stewart. “We can’t have that and it’s problematic. These are big issues and we need more support for pushing our high school students.”
Sean O’Leary is a Hartford Business Journal staff writer.
