The third in a series of legislative update conference calls sponsored by the CCAA/BCA Partnership featured a special guest this week as Alabama Gov. Bob Riley briefed participants on the status of his agenda and answered submitted questions.

Riley, who was introduced by BCA Chairman and Huntsville-based financial advisor Phil Dotts, said he believes the legislative progress is being hampered by a coalition of lobbyists and lawmakers dedicated toward passage of a bill that legalizes the presence of electronic gaming machines in several locations across the state.  The governor is strongly opposed to the bill and said he does not believe that advocates will achieve the votes necessary for its passage, but the focus on gambling has pushed other, more pressing, issues aside.

Among those issues, according to Riley, is the need for comprehensive ethics reform in state government.  A package of bills to toughen ethics standards introduced on behalf of the governor several weeks ago has languished in committee with little to no action taken.  He noted that the state’s ethics law has not been updated since 1973 and said frequent headlines of public officials being indicted and convicted demonstrates the need for reform.

“Alabama is beginning to develop a reputation for corruption, and if we do not begin to address it, in the next five or ten years, international companies will think twice about locating here,” Riley said.  “How can anyone be against ethics?”

The governor labeled efforts by some legislators to accept new federal dollars for unemployment compensation that Riley has already turned down as “short sighted” and “missing the big picture.”  He said accepting the additional funding would require Alabama to rewrite its unemployment compensation laws, and once the federal dollars are depleted, businesses across the state will be forced to pick up the burden in the “tens of millions of dollars” annually.

“The Midwest and Northeast have a hard time competing with the South, so congressmen from those areas trying to change the south,” Riley said.  “They want to qualify more people for unemployment and drive up the cost of doing business in Alabama so their areas of the country can compete for the projects we’ve successfully recruited over the past few years.”

Turning his attention to education, Riley said a looming fight in the legislative budget process will decide whether state tax dollars are invested into classroom programs or into employment benefits for teachers and support personnel.  He credited nationally-recognized programs like the Alabama Reading Initiative and the Alabama Math Science and Technology Initiative with raising standardized test scores and providing rural students with a level playing field in terms of education quality.

If spent wisely, according to Riley, funding from the federal stimulus package should help Alabama shore up its state budgets over the next two years.  By that time, he hopes, the economic downturn should be in full recovery.

Riley closed his remarks by noting that Alabama’s economy, while less than robust, is in better condition than all of our sister southeastern states and highlighted successful industrial recruitment of companies such as ThyssenKrupp as one reason.  Though our state’s unemployment rate has doubled, the governor said individual income earnings remain high, which is one sign of economic health.

Kirk Mancer, president of the Cullman Chamber and CCAA chair-elect, questioned the governor on the status of his bill granting subpoena power to the Ethics Commission when conducting investigations.  Riley said the bill remains in committee, and all he wants is an “up or down” vote on the floor so citizens may know where legislators stand.  He reiterated that two years of ethics abuses within the community college system and other areas of government could begin to retard economic development if allowed to continue.

The governor also mentioned that he has placed all state government contracts and expenditures in an on-line searchable database for taxpayers to review.  Such transparency should be the norm, according to Riley, not the exception, and he encouraged conference call participants to demand action on ethics reform legislation.

Before ending his presentation and returning to matters of state, Riley congratulated The Partnership for becoming a significant and effective grassroots movement with considerable influence in state government.   “Pick up your phones, make calls and put your influence to work,” Riley concluded.

BCA Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs Quentin Riggins provided a brief overview of other legislation affecting Chamber officials and their members.  He said legislation to remove the state sales tax from grocery items remains a central issue in the Alabama House, but hopes that efforts to remove the federal income tax deduction from the state tax code will begin to lessen as the end of the session draws near.

Negotiations continue over NRA-backed legislation allowing employees to bring firearms onto workplace property, according to BCA Director of Legislative Affairs Elizabeth Kennedy Lawlor.  A compromise version of the bill has moved from committee in the House after the NRA accepted BCA-drafted exceptions based upon Georgia law.  Employers such as car manufacturers, construction companies, utilities and others have policies governing firearm possession in the workplace, and the substitute version of the bill works to address their concerns.

In order to fully educate Chamber officials and their members on the issues surrounding additional federal unemployment dollars and their long-term impact on business expenses, BCA Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications Marty Sullivan said an informative packet, including talking points, has been emailed in .pdf format to conference call participants and other stakeholders.  She suggested the material would be useful in contacting legislators on this important matter.

Riggins concluded the call by telling participants that House Speaker Seth Hammett will be invited to participate in the next briefing to provide his view of the session and its major legislation.  The date and time of that call should be scheduled sometime within the next week.

The following is an Overview of the two organizations and how they came together:

In 1937, as Alabama found itself recovering from the economic crisis of the Great Depression, the time had come for the business community of this great state to bring together allies of a common nature to help fulfill the need of an advocate for the men and women who helped provide the fuel of government-commerce-in all it’s varied forms and locations.  Chambers of Commerce had long filled this role since their formation in England in the 1700’s as an extension of the European craft guilds, but the realization that city and county economies were bound by more of a regional or statewide nature than had been previously led the leadership of the Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville, Mobile, Dothan, Tuscaloosa, Alexander City, Anniston, Selma and Demopolis Chambers of Commerce, as well as representatives from allied organizations such as Alabama Power Company and The Montgomery Advertiser to form what was then known as the Alabama Association of Commercial Organizations.  The original intent of this group of representatives of local business communities was to “foster the commercial, industrial, and recreational welfare of the State…”.

Throughout the next decades, this organization saw changes not only in the state and its economy, but also in the group itself.  It grew more and more to be representative of the needs of local Chambers, and so changed it’s name to the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Alabama (CCEA) to the Chamber of Commerce Executive’s Association of Alabama (CCEAA), then, struggling with identity and mission, back to CCEA.

In 1997, sixty years after its formation, and realizing that Chambers of Commerce were still the premier local business advocate, the appellation Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama (CCAA) was adopted.  Along with this name change began the effort to bring this alliance from a part-time, volunteer-led group of Chamber executives to a true full-time, professionally-led association that represented the needs and issues that affect the over 110 Chambers of Commerce in that make up its membership.

In 1999, after carefully marshalling funding and support, the Board of Directors of CCAA hired its first professional director to head the organization.  Ralph Stacy, former Executive Director of the Greenville Area Chamber of Commerce, was hired to guide CCAA on its mission of “building a better Alabama…through strong Chambers of Commerce”.  Stacy still heads the organization as its President and Chief Executive Officer, having earned during his tenure the prestigious Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation from the American Society of Association Executives.

While CCAA made headway in representing the needs of local Chambers and their professional staff, as well as providing training and conference opportunities for all Alabama Chambers, the potential of the strength of local Chambers came to the forefront with the hiring of William J. “Billy” Canary as the President and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama (BCA).

The BCA was formed in 1985 with the merger of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Industrial Manufacturers.  BCA is recognized as the State Chamber for Alabama by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  BCA and CCAA had always maintained cordial relations, but the linkage between local Chambers and BCA was somehow incomplete it its delivery method.

Canary, former White House staffer under President George H.W. Bush, and former President of the American Trucking Association, immediately began forging a stronger alliance with CCAA through increased interaction and participation in local Chamber events and with local Chamber executives.  This led to the formation in late 2003 of The Partnership, a formal document signed by BCA and CCAA leadership which linked together, for the first time, the power of BCA’s 5,000 members with the nearly 60,000 local businesses represented by Chambers. This has created a voice for business unlike any other in America.

Not only was this a bold move by both organizations, it also proved to be the first of its kind in America.  It has been recognized by both the U.S. Chamber and the American Chamber of Commerce Executives as being a unique program, and is currently under implementation in other states as a model for state Chamber association operations.

CCAA continues to serve it’s members by providing information on governmental affairs, including hosting a joint conference call every fifth legislative day with members of the BCA’s Governmental Affairs staff and local Chamber professionals; by communicating through it’s website (www.alabamachambers.org) issues that affect the local business community; by holding statewide membership events every quarter that address the professional development and networking needs of Chamber professionals; and by providing a clearinghouse for business-related information and contacts that serve the needs of local Chamber professionals.

For more information on CCAA, please contact L. Ralph Stacy, CAE, at 334-264-2112 or lrstacy@alaweb.com.  Visit their website at www.alabamachambers.org.

The Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama: “building a better Alabama…through strong Chambers of Commerce”.