Georgia House lawmakers were approving one proposal after another in a lightning-fast litany when action suddenly ground to a halt late Wednesday evening.
State Rep. Dusty Hightower, a second-term Republican from Carrollton, strode to the podium and nodded to the papers being circulated on lawmakers' desks. They were warnings that the Georgia Chamber and the National Federation of Independent Business fiercely opposed his House Bill 303 proposal and that their "yes" votes would be recorded on their feared scorecard.
The legislation gives insurance policyholders more leeway to get penalty fees and recoup attorneys costs if a court finds an insurance firm processing a claim on uninsured motorist coverage acts in "bad faith."
Big business forces have fought the measure from the get-go. The Chamber, for one, warned that it could lead all insurers to "process all claims without a thorough review to avoid the possibility of the court finding them in bad faith."
Hightower, an attorney, warned them he initially drafted the legislation when he was upset at the insurance industry after seeing clients get waylaid by unscrupulous firms. It was in rough shape, all acknowledge, and it took hours of committee work to get it to this point.
The finished product, he argued, would send the message that "I'm not going to support big, big business at the expense of the blue-collar worker."
What happened next certainly did.
This session has sorely tested the ties between the Chamber and state lawmakers, with testy debates over ways to raise new transportation revenue, the fate of a "religious liberty" proposal and a bid to revoke a tax credit benefiting Delta Air Lines. But Wednesday's late night vote showed just how strained the relationship has become.
State Rep. Christian Coomer, a floor leader for Gov. Nathan Deal who was not speaking for the governor, urged lawmakers to pass the bill and "give a little bit of leverage to the common man." State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, the brains behind the aforementioned Delta bill, called the Chamber and NFIB "flat-out wrong on this one."
Two more influential Republicans both considered to be in the party's Chamber-friendly wing, Wendell Willard and Mike Jacobs, then stepped to the podium to urge their colleagues to ignore the business community's warnings.
They did. The measure passed 153-14. And applause echoed throughout the room.
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