Gov. Jeff Landry has a strong hand on car insurance bills. Some conservatives are miffed

The biggest vote of the three-week-old legislative session came Wednesday when the House had to decide whether to side with Gov. Jeff Landry or Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple and powerful business interests on a bill that would affect car insurance rates.

Political insiders beforehand said the vote on House Bill 148 could go either way.

The bill sought by Landry would give Temple the right to reject excessive rate increases without backing up his decision with hard data – an authority he doesn't now have and doesn't want.

Landry said the insurance commissioner needs more tools to hold down rates, adding it would be the commissioner's fault if that didn't happen after getting those powers.

Temple warned that HB148 would give his office the right to rule arbitrarily. Business interests and numerous Republican legislators agreed, saying this possibility would discourage insurance companies from investing in Louisiana.

The bill's opponents would normally form a formidable political coalition. In fact, they had passed at least 16 pro-industry measures in the House in the preceding days.

But Landry overpowered his opponents on the commissioner rate-setting bill, as the House passed the bill, 68-34.

The vote puts Landry in a commanding position to get the Legislature to approve the limited number of the pro-industry bills he supports – then blame Temple if the rates don't go down. Landry calls it a "balanced" approach to stop the sharp rise in car insurance rates that are among the highest in the country.

But Wednesday's victory comes at a cost because it has put Landry at odds with a significant number of Republicans in the House for the first time and has prompted strong pushback from some influential conservatives.

Veteran commentator Rolfe McCollister wrote a column in the Baton Rouge Business Report blasting Landry as being too cozy with trial lawyers, noting that he met with several of them at an exclusive hunting lodge in Texas last month.

Talk radio host Moon Griffon told his listeners that Landry was trying to make Temple "a scapegoat" with the rate-setting bill.

Deep rift

Meanwhile, the vote exposed a deep rift between Landry and Republicans in the House, as they voted 37-33 in favor of the bill. It took the unanimous support of Democrats to pass it.

Before the vote, Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, the chair of the Insurance Committee and a strong Landry supporter, asked his colleagues to reject it.

"I think this bill has the potential to completely nullify all the good bills we may pass and the potential to negate all the property reforms we made last year," Firment said in an interview the next day. "It will send a chilling effect to the entire market. It could be catastrophic for our insurance market."

Landry is under fire from Republicans after supporting four amendments to the state constitution that voters overwhelmingly rejected on March 29.

Now that the car insurance bills have passed the House, attention will shift to the Senate, where the pro-industry measures have had less success in the past. That will put a spotlight on the next step in the political process, Judiciary A Committee, and its chair, Sen. Greg Miller, R-Norco.

Miller said he expects his committee to hear the car insurance bills on May 13.

The stakes are high for consumers – and legislators.

Senators targeted

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority targeted two senators running for reelection in 2019 with attack ads because they had voted against a pro-industry bill that year.

Then-Sen. Ryan Gatti, R-Bossier City, said he analyzed that bill and concluded it wouldn't reduce rates, despite the claims of industry supporters.

"My kids would come home from school with mailers given to them by friends sent to their parents saying I had voted against reducing rates," Gatti said recently.

The pro-industry side also attacked then-Sen. John Milkovich, D-Shreveport.

"The bill did not require or mandate insurance companies to reduce their premiums a single penny," Milkovich said recently. "It cuts rights, not rates."

Both men, despite being staunch opponents of abortion, were defeated by Republicans.

The trial lawyers also wield considerable political clout on matters known inside the Capitol as tort reform.

"We have had tort reform since 1975, and not once has there been a reduction in rates," said Brian Katz, a New Orleans trial lawyer who is president this year of the Louisiana Association for Justice. "These measures will not reduce rates either. They are selling the citizens of Louisiana a bill of goods."

Contributions for Temple

Real Reform Louisiana, which describes itself as "a consumer protection group focused on policyholders," has begun to put political heat on Temple by publicizing an analysis showing that of the campaign money Temple raised during the 15 months after his election in 2023, nearly 75% came from insurance industry sources.

"Commissioner Temple has repeatedly pushed the industry's agenda at the expense of Louisiana policyholders," said Ben Riggs, the group's executive director.

Temple has said his efforts will create greater incentives for insurance companies to come to Louisiana, which will reduce rates.

More than a dozen Republicans were elected to the House in 2023 after promising voters they would find a solution to rising car insurance rates. Many of the Republican freshmen were elected with money spent by the Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority and other conservative groups.

Over the past six months, the freshmen developed a series of bills while working with Temple, Firment, Speaker Pro Tem Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, and insurance industry advocates. Those became the measures passed by the House in the past week that supporters say would lead to fewer claims and fewer big payouts while tilting the courts away from trial lawyers and their injured clients.

What Landry is supporting

When the governor appeared on Griffon's program Tuesday, he endorsed House Bill 450 by Rep. Michael Melerine, R-Shreveport. The bill would reverse a Louisiana Supreme Court judicial precedent which says that if evidence points to a causal connection between a crash and an injury when symptoms appear after an accident, then it's presumed the accident caused the symptoms.

Landry also said he is supporting House Bill 519 by Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell. The bill would allow drivers to use their cell phones only hands free.

Also getting Landry's backing is House Bill 434 by Rep. Jason Dewitt, R-Alexandria. It would limit how much an injured driver could collect who does not have car insurance, which is mandated under state law.

The governor also endorsed the rate-setting bill opposed by Temple.

But Landry, who received big contributions from trial lawyers when he was elected governor in 2023, has said he would support only a few of the pro-industry bills, saying no one could guarantee that passage of the other measures would bring down rates.

"I'll guarantee you that if the people's auto insurance rates go up, there's only one person allowing them to go up," he told Griffon's listeners. "It's not the lawyers. It would be the commissioner."

Landry was facing a problem with the rate-setting bill. It was sponsored by Rep. Robby Carter, D-Greensburg, and, after it won committee approval, House Republicans voted in their caucus to support only car insurance bills authored by Republicans.

Wiley's role

On Tuesday, Rep. Jeff Wiley, R-Maurepas, said he told Glorioso that he could support the Carter House Bill 576. That set in motion a plan to take language in Carter's bill and drop it into Wiley's HB148.

"I'm certain if I talked to 10 people at Walmart about insurance premiums and would they think it's a good idea to increase the authority of the commissioner on rates, they would say yes," Wiley said in an interview later, adding that the governor offered him nothing in return for his move.

Glorioso agreed to sponsor the amendment to effectively turn Carter's bill into Wiley's HB148.

Several hours before Wednesday's vote, first Temple and then Landry separately explained their positions to Republicans meeting in the Capitol basement.

When it came time to vote, the governor won a 2-1 majority. But he lost not only Firment but two other committee chairs who would normally vote with him: Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, and Rep. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles. Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, the party caucus chair, also voted against Landry.

In supporting the bill, Glorioso broke ranks with a group of 15 House freshmen who had been working together to pass bills that Temple and the insurance industry supported. Glorioso said afterward that he got Landry to agree to remove a provision from Carter's bill that would have allowed the insurance commissioner to set rates instead of just disallow them.

"It's a tough situation," Glorioso said after the vote. "No one has wanted to be in the middle of a political fight between the commissioner and the governor. This bill allows the commissioner to reject rates, and insurance companies can appeal the decision."

The 31 Democrats could have torpedoed the bill if they had voted against it since only 37 Republicans voted for it, 16 short of what was needed.

"The people of Louisiana really need relief from high and unaffordable car insurance," Rep. Matthew Willard of New Orleans, the Democratic caucus chair, said afterward. "We think the commissioner should have that authority to protect rate payers."