In an announcement that shocked even the scientific community, Florida Governor Charlie Crist confirmed, on the occasion of addressing the end of the last legislative session, what had only been hinted at before: insurance lobbyists are not people!

“You put the nail in the coffin this afternoon on the industry that was hurting our people. That’s right and just fair and important, and you did it, and God bless you for fighting for the people of Florida,” Crist said to cheers. “I hear some groans from insurance lobbyists? Tough! That’s right. We work for the people, not them!”

Crist may have found a loophole in his oath of office — the one where he pledged to serve ALL the people of Florida. Why, if insurance lobbyists (and, in fact, the entire insurance industry if you listen to other Crist comments) are not people, not Floridians, then they don’t count for squat and Crist owes them nothing.

"Crist may have found a loophole
in his oath of office — the one where
he pledged to serve ALL the
people of Florida."

Crist’s novel idea for serving only a subset of his constituents should come in handy for politicians everywhere. Rather than a balanced, honest approach to issues, elected officials can simply pick the side with the most votes and declare the other side non-human.

Reportedly, many of those dissed insurance lobbyists are submitting themselves for DNA testing — hoping the tests prove they are not a sub-human species with one alleged goal: to hurt the real people of Florida.

You’ve heard that chimpanzees share 98% of their DNA with humans? I’m just wondering what Governor Charlie thinks the number is for insurance lobbyists? 99%? 96%? 35%?

To tell you the truth, until Governor Charlie’s announcement, I was completely fooled.

Having met an insurance lobbyist or two in my life I can tell you this: They do look like people. They have arms and legs and ears and hair and they walk and talk just like everybody else.

If they live in Florida, I’m pretty sure they pay Florida taxes and vote just like the rest of us.

In fact, according to the Insurance Information Institute, the insurance industry provided 2.3 million jobs in 2005 (2.1% of all private industry jobs), including 172,000 of them in Florida. In the same year, the industry paid $764.5 million in premium tax to Governor Crist’s state while holding $13.3 billion in Florida municipal bonds.

And there is that little matter of tens of $ billions in paid claims.

Yet for all of the grand contributions, Governor Crist, with his gushing, callous, crushing disrespect for an industry so important, so essential, so urgent that the lack of it would bring every commercial endeavor in Florida to a crashing halt — can think of no better descriptor for your business than the “industry that hurts our people.”

— Editor