The astroturf war in New York over car insurance reform

Last month, City & State published a short piece about roughly a dozen clergy members who signed on to a letter opposing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s car insurance reform measures. The letter was organized by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, staunch opponents of the governor’s proposals. It didn’t take long for a representative from Citizens for Affordable Rates, an Uber-backed super PAC supporting Hochul’s plans, to reach out regarding a competing letter, signed by over 50 clergy members backing the governor’s plan.

But it didn’t stop there. The representative said three of the people who signed CAR’s letter had been listed as signatories on the trial lawyers’ letter but definitely had not agreed to inclusion on the missive against Hochul’s proposals. Except when City & State reached out to one of those clergy members, he said the opposite was true: He had never interacted with CAR and knew nothing about his name on its letter. The group ultimately removed the clergy member before circulating the letter widely.

It wasn’t even the first time something of that nature happened. A letter pitched to City & State from a large, existing coalition opposing the governor’s car insurance plan included the names of every single member of that broad collective – including several individuals and groups that had already expressed support for Hochul’s proposal, and others who had not realized they were added to the letter. After City & State asked the governor’s office for comment on the letter, her staffers began reaching out to signatories that had not proactively agreed to sign. Ultimately, that particular letter was never made public.

These episodes serve to illustrate what anyone working in Albany probably already knows: The incredibly technical topic of car insurance and tort reform has emerged as one of the budget’s hottest political issues – pitting two powerhouse industry lobbies against one another. Both opponents and supporters of the governor’s proposal have engaged in intense, tit-for-tat advocacy campaigns with millions of dollars on the line.

The two main actors in the car insurance stage play are Uber, largely through Citizens for Affordable Rates, and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. Both have powerful lobbying arms and exercise impressive influence in the political realm. But despite the insistence of Hochul and her surrogates, the two are hardly on even footing. While NYSTLA – whose members make big bucks from representing car crash victims – spends hundreds of thousands on lobbying, Uber has spent over $8 million so far this year to push for its preferred reforms, per state data.

For Hochul, car insurance reform has emerged as a marquee affordability proposal as she runs for reelection. She has held numerous events with many surrogates across the state since the start of the year – a baker’s dozen, according to a review from Streetsblog – in order to hammer home her message about saving car owners money and cracking down on fraudulent and frivolous lawsuits from those she calls “billboard lawyers.”

Hochul has insisted that Uber has nothing to do with her single-minded focus on the issue, going so far as to suggest more than once that the giant corporation is no different than any average New Yorker trying to get her ear. “Come on, this is about everybody, not one company,” she told reporters last month. “That’s ridiculous.” At the same time, Hochul has implied that anyone against her is beholden to “special interests.” “I have to tell you how Albany works?” she quipped to this reporter.

Her surrogates have hammered home this message too. After a joint appearance with Hochul last month to discuss the cost benefits of the reforms for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, agency head Janno Lieber made his way up to Albany just earlier this week to directly lobby legislative leaders and their staff on the matter. The Hochul administration – which knew City & State was working on this story – proactively offered Lieber up for an exclusive chat about his efforts. “If there’s an MTA bus within a half a mile of a fender bender, there’s going to be some billboard lawyer who wants to see if they can convince a jury that we’re 1% responsible, and then there we have to fund the whole payout, no matter how big it is,” he said. “Seems nutty.”

Despite a Hochul staffer serving as a conduit for the conversation, Lieber told City & State the governor had not asked him to come to the state Capitol. “She didn’t, but look, I’ve talked to the governor about this a lot,” he said. The acting commissioner of the Department of Financial Services offered a similar denial to City & State during another impromptu auto insurance conversation offered as a cold pitch on the same day.

A highly coordinated rally organized by Hochul in the state Capitol last month sought to illustrate widespread support for her proposals by featuring a diverse set of “grassroots” supporters, including small-business representatives, advocates for older New Yorkers, people with disabilities and the trucking industry. Coincidentally, another rally in support of Hochul’s proposal took place in Albany just one day earlier with – you guessed it – faith leaders. It could come across as grassroots, were it not for the fact that Uber-backed Citizens for Affordable Rates organized the event.

“To suggest that these New Yorkers are not generally impacted by this, and that we need some transportation company to stimulate our interest in this issue is completely out of touch with the average New Yorkers’ kitchen table issues,” said the Rev. Conrad Tillard when asked about Uber’s millions in spending. He twice called reservations about the ride-hailing company’s vested fiscal interest in the matter “propaganda,” but would not directly address a follow-up question about the involvement of Citizens for Affordable Rates.

Reducing high insurance rates for New Yorkers struggling with an affordability crisis certainly sounds like an issue that many people can get behind without the need for a coordinated astroturf campaign. But to borrow a phrase from Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, “the hell is in the details,” and Uber is spending big to make sure the specific changes it wants that the governor has proposed make it into the final budget.

Lobbying data for the first two months of the year show Uber has already spent at least $5.5 million on its car insurance efforts. The vast majority of that money went toward Citizens for Affordable Rates, the super PAC run by one of Uber’s main lobbying firms and primary law firm that does most of the heavy lifting. According to state Board of Elections filings for Citizens for Affordable Rates, which include donations and spending in March, the group has spent over $8 million on its advertising and lobbying spree. Uber also dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars to directly advertise in news outlets across the state (including City & State).

Opponents of Hochul’s proposals are fewer and less flush than supporters, with crash victims and street safety advocates making up the largest contingent. NYSTLA leads those efforts, (and has also advertised in City & State) arguing that they also support lowering insurance premiums, just not through the governor’s methods – which would result in personal injury attorneys winning smaller payouts in lawsuits.

Of course, the group denies their own financial interest has any impact on their lobbying efforts, and instead has focused on protecting car crash victims, who would have less legal recourse if Hochul’s proposed reforms are included in the budget. “I’m here to let everybody know what the governor has put forth and has set forth, to change insurance laws on the backs of injured people, is simply wrong,” Andrew Finkelstein, president of NYSTLA, said at a hastily organized Albany rally with crash victims earlier this week. “She couches it in the term ‘affordability,’ but the reality is affordability is really code for profitability. It’s profitability for insurance companies.”

Finkelstein was flanked by a handful of victims holding handwritten signs and Assembly Member Jen Lunsford, a sympathetic lawmaker who has introduced a bill she said would address the “root causes” of New York’s high auto insurance rates. By that same afternoon, a press advisory had gone out for yet another rally, this one in favor of Hochul’s plan featuring leaders from the business, farming and trucking industries.

The next day, those representatives stood on the same steps as the crash victims in the state Capitol and held their own hastily made signage. Rinse and repeat until the budget gets passed.