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Web posted June 15, 1997

Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

Even if John Oxendine were the best insurance commissioner Georgia has ever had, his record would be sullied by the fact that he has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money from insurance executives.

It is just fundamentally wrong for a regulator to accept money from the people he regulates. This is why the Legislature banned insurance companies from donating to insurance commissioner candidates.

But that hasn't stopped Oxendine from exploiting the loophole that allows insurance firm employees as individuals, and their families, to contribute. After winning election in 1994, the new GOP commissioner set up a ``roundtable'' for $1,000 donors to meet with him periodically.

Subsequently at least 50 companies were granted auto insurance rate increases and in at least 15 of those cases company executives gave money to Oxendine's campaign, a Morris News Service review of corporate records shows. The 15 contributed at least $43,000. Overall, Oxendine has raised $450,000 in insurance money.

Does this suggest wrongdoing? No, because heeding the letter of the law while violating its spirit is often the way business is done in Georgia. But the appearance of a conflict of interest is certainly there; whether Oxendine will pay a price for that won't be known until, as expected, he runs for re-election next year. His industry-driven war chest, however, will surely help him beat off opponents.

Even so, foes may not make much of Oxendine's roundtable, because they, too, will want to attract industry money. What they will point to are the rate increases the incumbent granted after a four-year moratorium by his defeated predecessor, Democrat Tim Ryles.

Oxendine, with some justification, argues that the heavy-handed rate freeze left some insurance companies in bad financial shape and others ready to sue or leave the state. The commissioner also says some firms skirted the freeze by shifting good drivers into more costly coverage categories.

Moreover, there is little evidence the rate hikes were outlandishly high and they have succeeded in bringing more competition to the industry which in the long run should be more effective in keeping premiums down than a government imposed freeze.

The problem for Oxendine isn't that he doesn't have a defensible record. It's that the record is obscured by the perception that he's in bed with insurers at the expense of consumers.

Even Dean Auten, a Brunswick insurance executive who has contributed to Oxendine's campaign, says the commissioner should not be taking money from executives and then giving their companies rate increases. That's good advice the commissioner should take.