In tribute to the final days of the 2010 legislative session, I bring you insight from a previous century. Along with James Madison and John Jay, Alexander Hamilton authored The Federalist Papers (1787-1788), a series of 85 political essays that illustrated the problems of this new government being crafted. In one essay, Hamilton posed and answered the following question: Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
A brilliant man, Hamilton's life began and ended in notoriety. He was born in 1757 on the West Indies Island of Nevis, the illegitimate son of a Scottish merchant, and died in 1804 following a duel with Aaron Burr.
He was also a bit of a pain, especially to those he disliked. The bad blood between Hamilton and Burr was years in the making. In 1800, Hamilton prevented Burr from winning the presidency by championing Thomas Jefferson instead. (Ironic, since Hamilton thoroughly disliked Jefferson. However, while he considered Jefferson a political hack, he thought Burr dishonorable.) Burr ended up serving one unhappy term as Jefferson's vice president. When he ran for governor of New York in 1804, Burr took exception to further criticism from Hamilton and challenged him to the famous duel. When they met on July 11, 1804, Burr proved the better shot (although some reports claim that Hamilton fired into the air, not at Burr). Hamilton died the following day.
Why does Hamilton matter to us today, other than to show that politics back then was much more exciting? Because he also wrote the following: Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
In other words, partisanship has been with us since our formation, and it will continue to play pivotal roles in how our elected officials conduct the business of the people. (Well, except in the case of Gov. Charlie Crist, where party affiliation seems not to matter at all.) Due to deadline constraints, I write this before the final week of the 2010 session. The fate of various legislation has been changing hourly amid new amendments, threats of vetoes, and declarations that this bill or that one was dead. With so much undecided, I cannot applaud or berate our lawmakers' final actions. However, if past is prologue, no one will be entirely happy with the results, and important votes may be cast for reasons other than altruistic. On the positive side, no gunfire.
Moving onto a different but again positive topic, we are now fully into our Florida convention season. In our April 2010 issue, we gave you the run-down on what groups were going where and when. (Go to www.floridaunderwriter.com if you need a memory jog.)
Kicking off the festivities was an organization that has been off the convention circuit for some time. PIA of Florida, Inc., teamed up with the PIA Western Alliance to present Agent Expo 2010 on April 19-20 in Orlando, its first large conference in 14 years. I drove over to see what was happening, and found some 500 attendees and vendors chatting about "Innovations in Insurance," the conference's theme. CEO Mark O'Connell was a decidedly happy camper at the turnout. He told me that 90 to 95 percent of the attendees were agency principals, and credited an aggressive marketing campaign for getting the word out and promoting the event. Just another reminder that advertising and marketing do work.
I look forward to seeing many of you over the next few months. Next up for me, the Florida Association of Health Underwriters Symposium and Expo May 5-7 in Orlando, and a pit stop at the NCCI Annual Issues Symposium 2010 on May 6-7, also in Orlando.
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