Guilt by association

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Now I don’t know the nominee, and I am not fond of subsuming my judgment to guilt by association, but I worry about how independent of the industry this person can be. It is not simply that the people he knows are all industry executives and he’ll take their calls more readily than he’ll take yours. More to the point is that his frame of reference for evaluating any dispute between insurer and insured is his life’s work experience on one side of that dispute.

Certainly he will have in-depth knowledge of his field, which is desirable, even necessary, but the deck is stacked against his ability to be more sensitive to the consumer than his predecessor evidently was, or than the government regulators in Washington and Louisiana have been while the insurance companies have been working so hard to avoid making adequate payouts to the victims of Katrina.

Let me also point out that insurance companies are among the most profitable in the American economy. Is our new man ready to tear into them with sufficient vigor? He’s already on record spouting platitudes about the marketplace and healthy competition.

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Connecticut Innovations, Inc., funded by the state, has funneled more than $10 million into in-state companies working on various aspects of producing clean energy, $500,000 here, $700,000 there, in what at first glance look like judicious and helpful investments.

The article points out, however, that a Courant investigation in 2005 turned up an instance in which a loan was made to a company with ties to a CI board member (not the nominee) and to associates of Rowland. The proposed interim chief is currently an undersecretary at the state Office of Policy and Management, and has been on the CI board for some time. Two previous chiefs have each left after six-months’ tenures. The CI board is unanimous in its support for the nominee. He will resign from the board if confirmed.

The nominee’s brother is a guy who Rowland tried and failed to get appointed as a state judge, and his sister-in-law was Rowland’s personal secretary. Moreover, he has no background in venture capital; he holds a law degree, and his business experience has been limited to ownership of a vending machine company and a florist shop. Guilt by association, certainly.

But also, his connections are the whole reason for his selection. The CI board argues that he doesn’t need experience in venture capital or technology industries, because the staff can provide that; what the staff does not have, and what the nominee possesses, is experience in working with the Legislature and the top state officials, which is essential right now so that CI can obtain $30 million in new state funding.

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Are these the right nominees? Maybe, but we sure have reason to doubt.

We might have had more reason — or less reason — but the Courant does not give us citizens much aid in making our decision, because article A does not dig into whether the insurance industry is better or worse regulated in Connecticut than elsewhere, whether having the industry pay for the regulatory agency is standard or nonstandard, whether there are recent instances in which Connecticut insurers have done badly by consumers.

And article B does not give us enough about the history and effectiveness of the CI agency. For example, it reports that the state Office of Policy and Management reviewed the questioned loan, but not what its decision on that review was. (The nominee was not part of the review process.)

The larger matters relate to the significant lowering of standards for regulatory and development agencies at the national level during the Bush presidency. If we tolerate environmental degraders hired to make decisions at the Environmental Protection Agency, and oil-company executives permitted to dictate chapter and verse of the administration’s energy policy, and political hacks in charge of the agency that oversees disaster work — "heck of-a-job Brownie" was confirmed in his post, despite lack of experience, because it was presumed that he would be able to work well with the politicos at White House, a necessary thing during an emergency — then why should we even raise an eyebrow when such patterns are replicated at the state level?

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We fathers and mothers fasten our children’s seatbelts, take away their sharp objects, warn against unsavory people and associations, and try to counter negative examples, all in assiduous attempts to remove from our children’s lives temptations and conditions that would lead them to folly, hurt or disaster. Putting an insurer in charge of an insurance regulatory agency, and putting a man with few qualifications other than his familiarity with the players in charge of an agency that spends tens of millions in state resources is much more than guilt by association — it is setting up those agencies, and those individuals, for failure.