Love, Dover Style

I had my annual hearing before the General Assembly Joint Finance Committee yesterday. The News Journal coverage catches the gist of my pitch for funding for affordable health insurance. You can read the article here.

The preparation every year for the Joint Finance hearing is intense—it is the one time each year that the legislators get to grill you about your budget and operations, and the legislators usually have a lot of detailed questions. My hearings have gone very well each year because we have been so prepared, and I was ready to roll this time as well. But this year turned out very different.

I pointed out to the committee members that this was my last visit—I said, “A year from now, I will either be lowering the chin-up bar in the Lieutenant Governor’s office or asking a first-year lawyer at a law firm how to find the new courthouse.” And what it prompted from the legislators, instead of questions, was a series of testimonials about the job that I and my team had done over the last few years at the Insurance Department. I am a loyal Democrat and proud of it, but I have to admit that I was touched to hear some of the Republican members of the committee talk about how impressed they were with the fights I took on for consumers.

At the end of the hearing, there was applause—which is also not the standard ending for a Joint Finance Committee hearing. The visitors section was full of insurance lobbyists who had come to watch my hearing. Senator Cook, the co-chair of the committee, looked at them and said “I don’t see you guys clapping.” I said “They’re cheering on the inside, Senator.”

This job is never boring.