Welcome Eric Emmert of Dorn Policy Group to the Inside Business Podcast

Eric Emmert, Senior Vice President at Dorn Policy Group, Inc., joins Mesa Chamber President and CEO Sally Harrison in discussing advocacy for businesses at the state level and the legislative session. 

Listen to the newest episode of our Inside Business Podcast:

Full Transcript

00;00;00;10 – 00;00;25;02
Kevin
The Mesa Chamber of Commerce Inside Business podcast brings you a unique view of Mesa through its vibrant business community and the subjects that are important. The podcast is produced in the Mesa Chamber of Commerce Media Studio sponsored by the University of Phenix. Our podcast is hosted by Mesa Chamber of Commerce CEO Sally Harrison. Please enjoy this episode of the Mesa Chamber Inside Business Podcast.

00;00;25;05 – 00;00;36;27
Sally
Hi, I’m Sally Harrison, president of the Mesa Chamber, and today I have Eric Emmert from Dorn Policy Group in the podcast studio to visit with us about all things legislative.

00;00;36;29 – 00;00;39;19
Eric
All things.

00;00;39;22 – 00;00;40;25
Sally
Thanks for being here.

00;00;40;28 – 00;00;41;17
Eric
Thanks for having me.

00;00;41;22 – 00;00;51;08
Sally
Of course. So talk about how long you’ve been doing this. I mean, you’ve been advocating for businesses at the state level for a long time. Yeah. Longer than I’ve been at the chamber.

00;00;51;09 – 00;01;09;23
Eric
Yeah. Yeah, I had been at this for a long time. I grew up in Iowa, got hit by the political bug with the presidential candidates cycling through the state every four years and turned that into a career that advocated for businesses. I worked for a presidential campaign and then began lobbying for a Chamber of commerce in.

00;01;09;23 – 00;01;10;29
Sally
Iowa and.

00;01;10;29 – 00;01;14;14
Eric
Then moved out to New Hampshire. Oh my goodness. There for 18 months.

00;01;14;15 – 00;01;14;29
Sally
Uh huh.

00;01;15;05 – 00;01;35;17
Eric
And then came down here in 2000, went to work for the Tempe Chamber of Commerce. Mm hmm. And then I hooked up with Tom Dorn in 2005, and it’s been a great partnership ever since we’ve represented the East Valley Chambers of Commerce Alliance, of which the Mesa Chamber is a a founding member, and done that for many, many years.

00;01;35;21 – 00;01;38;03
Sally
So, yeah, like 22.

00;01;38;05 – 00;01;43;03
Eric
Yeah. I think the alliance was founded in 1999.

00;01;43;06 – 00;01;44;02
Sally
Oh, wow.

00;01;44;04 – 00;02;08;23
Eric
It’s a it’s a unique entity. It is all the chambers of commerce in East Valley, as the name implies. Mm hmm. And it is really a model that’s been used in other parts of the country for collaboration and cooperation amongst business groups. But the Mesa Chamber of Commerce was one of the founding members. Mm hmm. Said that we should all get together and advocate for the East Valley and our interests in our region.

00;02;08;25 – 00;02;11;04
Eric
And it’s worked out quite well.

00;02;11;09 – 00;02;17;13
Sally
Well, and aren’t we one of the larger groups that come together for something like this?

00;02;17;20 – 00;02;32;09
Eric
Yeah, the. The East Valley Chambers of Commerce Alliance is larger than the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. Mm hmm. The Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the Tucson Chamber of Commerce. All put together. Wow. So it is the largest chamber organization in the state of Arizona.

00;02;32;09 – 00;02;35;25
Sally
And when you say larger, you’re talking about the number of businesses that we represent.

00;02;35;25 – 00;02;37;23
Eric
The number of businesses it represents know.

00;02;37;27 – 00;02;44;14
Sally
Yeah, that’s awesome. So talk about some of the issues you’ve addressed over the years for businesses and communities.

00;02;44;15 – 00;03;06;28
Eric
Sure. When I get to the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, my first directive was to get light rail into our community without the city council putting it out for a vote of the people, which they did. In 1996, there was a transit tax in Tempe. At that point in time, we had several city council members from Mesa come over to the Tempe City Council meeting that night.

00;03;06;28 – 00;03;10;11
Eric
They voted on it and lobbied for the.

00;03;10;13 – 00;03;11;05
Sally
For.

00;03;11;07 – 00;03;16;03
Eric
Light rail. Realize it can’t go to Mesa without going through Tempe. So what.

00;03;16;03 – 00;03;16;21
Sally
You said.

00;03;16;22 – 00;03;21;02
Eric
That was year 2000 with in summer 2000.

00;03;21;05 – 00;03;21;29
Sally
Mm hmm.

00;03;22;02 – 00;03;28;18
Eric
But we got it done. Yeah. And light rail is a success in both Tempe and Mesa.

00;03;28;21 – 00;03;29;08
Sally
A long time.

00;03;29;08 – 00;03;30;11
Eric
Ago. Yeah, that’s a long time.

00;03;30;12 – 00;03;41;04
Sally
Well, so talk about some of the other things, because I know just since I’ve been here, just since it’s been a while, but we’ve had some pretty significant issues that we have worked.

00;03;41;06 – 00;03;48;05
Eric
We have truth be told, we’ve worked on a lot of stuff together. That’s some has been fun, some not fun, but not.

00;03;48;05 – 00;03;51;19
Sally
Fun, but rewarding in the outcomes.

00;03;51;23 – 00;04;04;14
Eric
Correct? Right. Yeah. In the chamber members and the businesses of Mesa have benefited from that advocacy that the organization does. We had an unscrupulous lawyer that was going through town.

00;04;04;21 – 00;04;06;12
Sally
I’m sorry for this. That’s a very nice word.

00;04;06;14 – 00;04;27;01
Eric
That’s a nice way to put it. He was threatening businesses with Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits and was telling them, you know, we’ll just make this go away. If you cut us a check for 6000 or $10,000 or something like that, and it was a shakedown is what it was. And, you know, he’s.

00;04;27;03 – 00;04;30;14
Sally
Focused on small businesses, really couldn’t afford to fight them.

00;04;30;15 – 00;04;53;23
Eric
Yeah. The unsuspecting mom and pop shops that they had a parking lot that they purchased the building or something and didn’t realize that it wasn’t up to compliance with with Americans with Disabilities Act standards. Well, we ran a bill in the legislature and got this gentleman disbarred and now businesses. That was a great it was.

00;04;53;25 – 00;05;21;17
Sally
It was when you watch somebody do so many bad things and just out there and hurt small businesses, it was one of those things that when I think you called me to tell me they do sued, finally signed the bill. And I mean, it was like a day to celebrate this. It’s not like such a victory that we haven’t just enabled in our ability to help our small businesses.

00;05;21;18 – 00;05;25;15
Eric
Yeah. And you’ve had calls from members saying, I can’t afford it. Oh, this guy.

00;05;25;16 – 00;05;57;26
Sally
It was horrible. I mean, I spent the better part of that year just fielding phone calls and holding meetings and bringing, you know, people in the community together. Just more for us to be able to educate people so they understood what was happening and what they had to respond to and what they shouldn’t respond to. And when the attorney general got involved and, um, when 15 got involved, I think that’s when we realized how really significant the issue.

00;05;57;26 – 00;06;02;18
Eric
Was, you know, and the violations weren’t that that bad. Your sign is too low.

00;06;02;19 – 00;06;04;29
Sally
Yeah. Quarter of an inch too long, right?

00;06;04;29 – 00;06;05;19
Eric
Yeah, it was.

00;06;05;20 – 00;06;11;13
Sally
It’s not going to stop anybody from parking their No. And going in and getting their treatment or whatever it might be.

00;06;11;15 – 00;06;32;08
Eric
But the solution we came up with, with the members was to do a cure period whereby, okay, you get one of these letters, you have a period of 90 days or whatever to cure what was wrong. The signs to low. Okay, raise it. Yeah. You need some bigger stripes. Okay, No problem with that. That’s not that big of a deal.

00;06;32;10 – 00;06;36;09
Eric
Now businesses have the ability to do that. Yeah, and we got the guy disbarred.

00;06;36;11 – 00;06;50;21
Sally
Yes. Well, and when they were doing the Channel 15 interviews and they were going around talking to people, and then they went to his office and found that he was totally out of compliance, worse than most. I thought that was pretty entertaining, actually.

00;06;50;21 – 00;06;51;12
Eric
That was fun.

00;06;51;13 – 00;06;53;05
Sally
To think that they just.

00;06;53;08 – 00;06;53;20
Eric
Yeah.

00;06;53;22 – 00;06;55;05
Sally
Yeah, it was fun.

00;06;55;08 – 00;06;59;15
Eric
Yeah. We had another chamber member brought up an issue of theft by extortion.

00;06;59;15 – 00;07;00;22
Sally
Yeah, that was more recently.

00;07;00;22 – 00;07;23;10
Eric
That was more recently. We had a member come to the chamber and say, Look, I’m getting people coming into my retail establishment. In this case, it happened to be nothing. Bundt cake, right? Good friend of the chamber and and poor Jan was having people come in and saying, Look, I’m going to write a bad review about your business unless you give me a free bundt cake.

00;07;23;11 – 00;07;23;29
Sally
Right.

00;07;24;01 – 00;07;37;03
Eric
And that in and of itself is death by extortion. So we ran a bill in the legislature that addressed that issue and now it’s a crime to do that in Arizona, thanks to the Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

00;07;37;04 – 00;07;57;06
Sally
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s nice when your members come in and tell you that these things are going on, because the first one that, you know, stuff I wouldn’t have known about it as soon as we did, had one of our members hadn’t mentioned that, you know, during a visit with us and brought it to our attention. Yeah.

00;07;57;06 – 00;08;19;10
Eric
And I hope businesses listening to this think outside the box, too. Governments are to provide rules and parameters within which we we act and run our business. But think outside those parameters if there’s a problem or if there’s something that needs fixed. You know, tell your Chamber of Commerce, tell your legislators, tell your city council members they’re there to help.

00;08;19;12 – 00;08;25;27
Sally
Make some noise. Yeah. So how did this legislative session go compared to prior years?

00;08;26;00 – 00;08;51;29
Eric
Good question. This has been a challenging legislative session. We’ve had some some weighty issues that have fallen within the scope and outside the scope of the business community. We’ve had issues like abortion and security issues at the border that have really driven lawmakers to get angry with each other, for lack of a better descriptor. And that spilled into other issues as well.

00;08;51;29 – 00;09;13;18
Eric
So while the the business community had a pretty good session, we got a balanced budget, we got the Arizona Commerce Authority, reauthorize ICE for another few years. We had the Department of Transportation, which builds our roads reauthorized for another eight years. So we had a pretty good session. But it was contentious, to say the least. Mm hmm.

00;09;13;23 – 00;09;15;14
Sally
How many days do end up going?

00;09;15;16 – 00;09;26;25
Eric
160, which is a little bit longer than normal. They’re supposed to be in for 100 days. They typically go longer. But that’s what we got this year. 160 days.

00;09;26;28 – 00;09;36;29
Sally
Mm hmm. Well, hopefully next session won’t be quite as bad, but I know. Who knows? Yeah. Well, what can our chamber members do? How can they get involved?

00;09;37;06 – 00;10;02;04
Eric
That’s a great question. Best way to get involved. If you’re a chamber member, come to the Government Affairs Committee, Meet the third Thursday, the excuse me, third Friday of each month. And they meet at 730, and they bring in guests to talk about what’s happening. It’s an opportunity to network. It’s an opportunity to get to know your legislative and elected local leaders better.

00;10;02;06 – 00;10;24;29
Eric
That’s just one way. And then once you get to know those people, hopefully you’ll become a resource to them and develop a relationship with them. It’s good to have a relationship with the city council members. That’s that you’re in their district, right? It’s good to know your legislator who is down at the Capitol working on legislation that impacts your livelihood while you’re running your business.

00;10;25;01 – 00;10;32;06
Eric
So the Chamber is really a platform for being able to develop those relationships over time. All right.

00;10;32;09 – 00;10;40;12
Sally
Well, thank you for coming in. We will have to do this more often so we can keep people updated as we’re going through session next time.

00;10;40;14 – 00;10;41;02
Eric
Any time.

00;10;41;03 – 00;10;42;06
Sally
All right. Thank you.

00;10;42;09 – 00;10;43;25
Eric
Thank you.

00;10;43;28 – 00;11;03;06
Kevin
This has been a mesa Chamber of Commerce Inside Business podcast. You can find all podcast episodes at iTunes, Spotify, or your own favorite podcast Web site. You can also find them online at Mesa Chamber. Dawg Content of this podcast is Copyright the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. Unless otherwise noted.

Learn more about Dorn Policy Group, Inc. at: https://dornpolicygroup.com/

The Mesa Chamber of Commerce Inside Business Podcast is a production of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. Each episode is recorded in the University of Phoenix Podcast Studio. Inquiries regarding the MCIBP can be made via email to info@mesachamber.org.  The Podcast interviews members and individuals/organizations on topics of interest to Mesa Chamber members. Learn more at http://mesachamber.org

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