Peter Schorsch
As the saying goes in Tallahassee, if you can’t fire the Insurance Commissioner and install the preferred choice of one of your campaign’s largest donors (Fred Karlinsky), you can always drop a negative story about him into a reporter’s lap.
That’s what it certainly looks like this morning as the Naples Daily News Matt Dixon reports that the embattled Kevin McCarty — in Governor Rick Scott’s crosshairs because he does ridiculous things like insist that insurance companies operating in Florida be, you know, solvent — “hides” a credit card used to pay “bills he racks up traveling the globe to industry-related conferences and events.”
Nice work, Melissa Sellers. Well done, Frank Collins. You couldn’t get the rest of the Cabinet to go along with your diabolic plan to get rid of McCarty and replace him with Ron Henderson, Louisiana’s Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Advocacy. Not only does Henderson have the fact that he’s from Louisiana, where so much of Rick Scott world originates, Henderson is an associate of insurance lobbyist Karlinsky, who was one of the governor’s top fundraisers and served on Scott’s inauguration committee.
As first reported on SaintPetersBlog, McCarty has been in the Scott administration’s crosshairs for some time now. McCarty’s alleged transgression? Actually having the audacity to protect Florida’s insurance-buying public by not rubberstamping every self-serving scheme insurance lobbyists try to shove through the regulatory process. McCarty has for years been viewed as one of the savviest and most even-handed public servants in one of Tallahassee’s most challenging and important jobs.
Such responsible public service makes you persona non grata in the Executive Office of the Governor.
McCarty was close to being Baileyed by the Scott administration. To be Baileyed is when a Scott lawyer or staffer comes to you Luca Brasi-style and tells you you can either “resign or retire.” That’s what happened to FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey and it was about to happen to McCarty, along with two other regulatory officials, before enough attention was brought to the matter so as to thwart Scott’s plan.
Because they couldn’t get Jeff Atwater, Pam Bondi, and Adam Putnam to sign off on McCarty’s dismissal, as is required by the Florida Constitution, Sellers, Collins, and Company are now obviously going with Plan B — destroy McCarty’s reputation.
‘Here, Mr. Reporter, is something that if it’s written the right way makes it look like McCarty’s got his own slush fund.’
(L)aws require agencies and departments to track and report spending, including when their employees travel for any work-related reason.
That’s not the case for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners credit card given to McCarty in 2009 when he became the Missouri-based group’s president. Though he no longer leads the group, he is still a member and has used the card to travel across the globe for association events attended by insurance company officials and industry lobbyists.
The association does not release credit card statements, and the Office of Insurance Regulation that McCarty oversees does not receive copies. That means the records for trips to places like Switzerland, Germany and the Cayman Islands are not publicly available.
… Since September, McCarty has charged $10,037 to the credit card, including $2,158 at the Hilton Basel in Switzerland; $2,065 at Petits Plats, a Washington, D.C., restaurant; and $1,877 at Loews hotels in Santa Monica, Calif. The association also picked up the tab for travel to and from those events.
McCarty dines at Petits Plats? That sounds French! He must be fired immediately!
But wait, it sounds as if McCarty isn’t doing anything wrong…
Monte Stevens, the office’s deputy chief of staff, said because insurance is regulated by the states, not the federal government, it requires extensive travel.
“That means that regulators from every state and territory need to frequently meet in person to discuss the important issues facing the industry,” Stevens wrote in an email. “That is a dynamic that is unique in state government.”
Stevens said McCarty’s card is used only for expenses approved by the association, usually during travel to conferences and meetings.
“For example, if a group of commissioners and staff go to dinner together they may use the commissioner’s card to pay for the meal,” he said.
In fact, Republican legislator Bill Hager, a former Insurance Commissioner for the state of Iowa, said it’s imperative Florida’s insurance commissioner be involved with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, of which McCarty served as president.
“Insurance is the only major area of commerce regulated by the states, not the federal government,” Hager said. “For the past 150 years the states, through the NAIC, have put in place a series of model regulations, model statutes, model administrative provisions.
“We have very unique insurance challenges here in Florida” he said. “I’m pleased to see the Office of Insurance Regulation seated at the table.”
But Stevens explanation and Hager’s defense were not enough for the Tampa Tribune to headline Dixon’s story, “Credit card hides Fla. insurance chief’s bills.” Sellers and Collins got exactly what they wanted.
And just to make McCarty look worse, other Scott administration agency heads were ready to attest that they would never, ever do what McCarty did.
Leslie Palmer, chief of staff for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said the department’s executive director, Terry Rhodes, would not “take something like this even if it was offered.”
Dixon ends his report with the money shot:
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jamie Court, president and chairman of Consumer Watchdog, a California group focused on the insurance industry.
He said National Association of Insurance Commissioners conferences he has attended were packed with industry officials and lobbyists, which can make it even more important to see how public insurance regulators spend money attending the events.
“They can be cozy,” Court said. “The insurance industry is well represented at these things, and it provides easy access” to insurance commissioners.
There hasn’t been this good an oppo dump by Scottworld since it served up its file on Adam Putnam to the Miami Herald‘s Marc Caputo.
Excellent work, Melissa. Well done, Frank.
