INDUSTRY LEADER IN LIFE INSURANCE COUNTS ON MML&K TO PLACE STATE LOBBYISTS
MML&K was an instrumental driving force in overhauling sections of state life insurance code at the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL), creating a uniform model act for all states to adopt. On behalf of a leader in the life insurance industry, MML&K worked closely with state legislators from across the country to place a model act on NCOIL's agenda. After nearly 40 hours of hearings in six states over a 16-month period, NCOIL adopted the model act. Since that time, MML&K has assisted the client in coordinating lobbying efforts across the country in which more than 20 states adopted the NCOIL model, including Kentucky. As the effort moved out into individual states to pass the model legislation, MML&K used its extensive national network and resources to interview lobbyists in targeted states and select state representation with the necessary credentials to produce results. In each of these instances, MML&K had to analyze the local political landscape, identify the key legislators that would be influencing the legislation, vet the local lobbyists for potential conflicts of interest and hire the teams that have the connections and relationships to get the job done.
MML&K is currently working again at the national level, through NCOIL and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), to shape another model act on auto body claims. This type of lobbying and coordination is illustrative of the kind of work that can be done on behalf of a company with a nationwide presence that operates in dozens of state jurisdictions.
GRASS TOPS APPROACH TO SHAPING REGIONAL & NATIONAL ENERGY POLICES
MML&K successfully coordinated a 16-state campaign to help define energy issues in Washington, DC. Working with the client, MML&K identified and contracted with influential lobbyists in each of the states and led a coordinated message campaign aimed at political and business leaders in the community. Armed with the right information, MML&K provided the state-level lobbyists messaging from which they utilized their extensive local contact networks to educate community members who, in turn, were directed to voice their concerns back to Washington, D.C.
MML&K managed the relationships, messages, follow-through with elected officials, and feedback for the client with strong positive results. Similarly, MML&K actively participates on behalf of clients in regional interstate compacts, such as the Southern States Energy Board, which provide a forum for educating key state leaders. Consisting of Governors, key executive-level staff, and legislative leaders from each state, SSEB defines much of the energy and environmental discussion for the Southeast, which in turn helps shape national policies.
BOND APPROPRIATION MAKES BIG DIFFERENCE FOR NEGLECTED YOUTH
Brooklawn Child & Family Services, a haven for abused and neglected youth in Louisville, Kentucky, received a $2 million bond fund appropriation for capital expansion in 2008 thanks to MML&K's leadership. The realization of this funding was several years in the making, following a line-item budget veto from the previous gubernatorial administration in 2006. The $2 million supplements over $6 million in private funds raised on behalf of this project. With the funding stream completed, Brooklawn expanded its campus and services offering to include:
• Kentucky's first intense treatment program for young girls
• A separate area of the campus for elementary-aged children
• New beds to reduce waiting lists, serve increasing need, and provide more appropriate treatment settings, and
• Replacing, remodeling, and/or equipping the older facilities on campus to provide adequate educational, clinical, administrative, residential and recreation space for existing and new programs.
ROLLING OUT A WIN FOR THE KENTUCKY ALUMINUM INDUSTRY
A local businessman from Hancock County contacted MML&K about a property tax issue that was preventing him from expanding his warehousing business. After investigating the situation further, it became apparent that there was a bigger issue at stake - one that could have a significant impact on the aluminum industry in Kentucky.
MML&K Government Solutions began working with local river port warehouse owners, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and SECAT (Southeastern Consortium for Aluminum Technology) for a solution to the tax issue.
The New York Mercantile Exchange wanted to promote a futures contract that would allow its market users to warehouse much of their aluminum in Kentucky. However, high local property taxes on aluminum stored in Kentucky warehouses prevented NYMEX from contracting with local warehouses. After all, just across the river, both Indiana and Tennessee specifically exempted futures commodities like aluminum from local taxation in their states. However, NYMEX preferred to house aluminum in Kentucky because of the state's large aluminum industry and transportation options.
MML&K researched various possible options to remedy the situation, and found the only long-term solution was to change the state's property tax laws by defining aluminum futures commodities as its own class of property and exempting it from local taxes.
However, the state was facing a multi-million dollar budget shortfall and legislative leaders were wary of allowing any tax bills to be considered.
Despite the long odds, MML&K drafted several versions of legislation and developed a game plan to get the tax bill approved by a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. With the help of SECAT and aluminum industry leaders, two well-respected House members - one a Democrat, the other a Republican - agreed to sponsor the legislation.
MML&K carefully navigated a politically rancorous session and quietly built support for the legislation as a positive economic development incentive. Creating a warehousing industry for aluminum futures helps promote the state's aluminum business and brings worldwide prestige to the Commonwealth by concentrating a valuable component of the world aluminum industry within our borders.
House Bill 284 unanimously passed the Appropriations and Revenue committees of both the House and Senate, winning unanimous approval on the House floor by a 93-0 vote and on the Senate floor by a 38-0 vote. The bill was the first tax bill to pass in the short session, and only three other bills had previously passed both chambers.
As a result, Kentucky is now poised to build more warehouses capable of storing hundreds of millions of dollars in aluminum futures commodities for trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
CON CHANGE KEEPS AILING SENIORS WITH THEIR FAMILIES IN TIMES OF NEED
Nestled amid the rolling hills of Kentucky's Bluegrass Region is a quaint Methodist retirement village in Wilmore, 20 miles south of Lexington. The non-profit facility is home to more than 80 seniors, who choose to spend their retirement years surrounded by Kentucky's plush horse farms and southern hospitality.
But their retirement community was lacking a crucial element - the lack of skilled medical care on site.
Wesley Methodist Village provided senior couples with independent residential living and assisted residential living. However, if one member of a couple were to become ill or need medical care, he or she would have to be separated from their loved ones and familiar surroundings and be transferred to a nursing home facility, often miles away in Lexington or Louisville.
State law made it virtually impossible for a retirement community to have skilled nursing beds that provide medical treatment due to the state's bureaucratic Certificate of Need (CON) process and Medicaid requirements. For years, various health care facilities tried to change the law, but without success.
The non-profit Wesley Methodist Village hired MML&K Government Solutions to challenge the powerful nursing home lobby, which had long opposed these changes to state law.
McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland health care attorneys researched the issue and drafted narrowly defined legislation that would allow Wesley Methodist and other Continuing Care Retirement Communities to have a limited number of skilled nursing beds for our increasingly aging population.
With legislation in hand, MML&K's government relations team flooded the Capitol halls in Frankfort, found a credible sponsor for the bill and began telling Wesley Methodist's compelling story to every legislator.
However, time ran short.
The bill was narrowly defeated in committee under the weight of the well-established nursing home lobby. Nevertheless, neither Wesley Methodist nor MML&K gave up.
MML&K's relentless pursuit of the bill forced the nursing home industry to strike a compromise. Minor concessions were made in the bill to gain that industry's support, and in a highly unusual move, the bill was reconsidered in committee and approved.
From there, the bill passed the House of Representatives by a whopping 93 to 1 margin, and later passed the Senate by a 38-0 vote.
Today, retirement communities in Kentucky such as Wesley Methodist may offer "continuing care" to their residents, allowing them to stay with their loved ones in familiar surroundings without disrupting their lives because of illness.
STATE UNIVERSITY RELIES ON MML&K FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION
Kentucky is home to a Historically Black College/University, whose land grant status and university mission makes it a truly unique entity among Kentucky's postsecondary institutions. MML&K has represented the school for many years at both the federal and state levels, and the firm was instrumental in ensuring its inclusion in the most recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
Working with Members of the U.S. Senate Health, Labor, Education & Pensions Committee, and the House Committee on Education & Labor, MML&K lobbyists were successful in adding the school's graduate programs to the exclusive list of HBCUs with guaranteed funding for graduate programs. The Congressional Black Caucus and other schools met the effort with significant resistance, but MML&K's relationships with key KY Congressional Members, Committee staff and Members from other States were critical to the effort's ultimate success. The result was roughly $3 million of guaranteed federal funding for the subsequent six years.
