Lawmakers Want Chamber Of Commerce To Drop Ads

Sunday Gazette-Mail, Dec. 3, 2006

West Virginia lawmakers want the state Chamber of Commerce to stop running “negative” advertisements about business conditions in the state and instead work together with them to enhance the state’s business climate.

Members of the Legislature’s Joint Commission on Economic Development sent a letter to chamber President Steve Roberts last week, asking the chamber to stop broadcasting “the pessimistic ads that perpetuate a negative self-image of the Mountain State .” They have asked Roberts and other chamber representatives to attend the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 10-12.

“We’re saying, ‘Do you really need to do the negative ads? It’s not like we aren’t paying attention,’” said Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha and commission co-chairman.

“I personally don’t think it benefits us to have ads that just talk about bad things,” said Delegate Sam Cann, D-Harrison, who is the other commission co-chairman.

Roberts doesn’t see the advertisements as negative, but realistic. “Our role is to speak for our members who employ over half West Virginia ’s work force,” he said.

Surveys of his membership show legal reform is still a prime issue in keeping businesses from locating in the state, he said. Lawmakers say much of that has already been addressed and they want to work with chamber members to make other necessary changes.

Cann and McCabe point to the state’s paying down its unfunded debt, changing medical malpractice laws, making major insurance reforms that included paring down joint and several liability and limiting third-party bad-faith lawsuits, privatizing the workers’ compensation system and implementing recent tax reforms as proof the state has made progress.

“The chamber has been helpful in working through some of these complicated issues,” McCabe said.

Roberts says more needs to be done to attract manufacturing jobs, the type of jobs that have been fleeing the U.S. for overseas locations. West Virginia needs to look at what other states have done, he said. “There are a number of states that have put some kind of limit on such things as punitive damages,” he said, using that issue as an example.

In the 1970s, Roberts said, more than 125,000 state residents held manufacturing jobs. That total is now down to about 62,000. “We look at that and say, ‘That’s a concern,’” he said. And, he says, manufacturers have told the chamber much of the loss is due to a lack of legal reforms.

“There’s a lot we have to do,” McCabe conceded.

“I think we have resolved large pieces of that,” Cann said, adding the chamber’s advertisements “perpetuate issues” that have been resolved partially or fully.

“The commission was concerned because the ads are very negative at a time when everybody is working as hard as they can to deal with some of the fundamental issues,” McCabe said.

Cann and McCabe said the chamber needs to be at the table, negotiating with labor and other groups to obtain change, not airing negative ads about West Virginia . The ads, McCabe said, have hurt the state’s efforts to recruit businesses and go against Gov. Joe Manchin’s slogan, “Open for Business.” “I think it’s time to put the negative ads behind us,” the senator said.

Roberts, however, believes the ads may be the reason his organization has been invited to meet with lawmakers. “I think our commercials may have created the opportunity to have the discussion,” he said.

McCabe said that instead, the ads “create a division” in the state when lawmakers would like to have all sides trying to work together. He called them “inappropriate.”

“We think the ads were unduly harsh,” Cann said, saying commission members “don’t necessarily agree with what the ads portray.”

Roberts said he would gladly meet with commission members. “I have offered to come over to the Legislature and talk to them about our view,” he said.

The two lawmakers stressed the need for compromise. “I think it’s wonderful we have diverse views on issues,” Cann said.

In dealing with other business-related issues, Cann noted, lawmakers worked with both sides and “had heartburn. I’m not sure that isn’t the way a compromise works.”