October 25, 2008-Jamestown Sun
Fargo lawyers spar in heated insurance race
By James MacPherson, The Associated Press
The Jamestown Sun - 10/25/2008 BISMARCK — Two Fargo attorneys are waging one of the state’s most contentious races this fall — a fight to see who will become North Dakota’s top insurance regulator.
North Dakota is one of a dozen states with an elected insurance commissioner. In most states, the job is appointed by the governor.
Adam Hamm, 37, a former Cass County prosecutor, is running for his first elected term as insurance commissioner. Gov. John Hoeven appointed him in October 2007 to finish the term of incumbent Republican Jim Poolman, who resigned.
Within a few weeks, Fargo state Democratic Rep. Jasper Schneider began his own campaign for the seat. He was unchallenged for the Democratic endorsement to run against Hamm.
Schneider, 29, said he would not have opposed Poolman, whom he called his friend and a competent insurance commissioner. He has no such feelings for Hamm.
“He is just not doing a good enough job,” Schneider said. “I think I’m the best person for the job.”
Hamm believes he has compiled a good record during his brief time in office.
“This job is tough enough, but it’s tougher when folks across the aisle are screaming ‘politics’ at every decision I make,” Hamm said. “But I’m a big boy, I can take it. It is what it is.”
He compared the experience to being a prosecutor. “When you’ve stared eye-to-eye with murderers, it’s no big deal to stare down these guys,” Hamm said.
Hamm and Schneider have dueled about Hamm’s prominent role in a federally funded television advertisement to offer the Insurance Department’s help for seniors with questions about health insurance and prescription drug benefits.
Democrats called the spot a Hamm campaign ad. North Dakota’s Democratic congressional delegation has requested a federal investigation of the ad, which Schneider called “blatantly in-your-face and political.” Hamm said many seniors responded to it.
Schneider says Hamm’s recent denials of rate-increase requests by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, the state’s dominant health insurer, were a politically motivated facade intended to make him appear to be a tough consumer advocate.
Hamm said he refused the requests in part because Blue Cross Blue Shield wanted the option of lowering payments to medical providers if the company believed the step was necessary.
Most recently, Schneider has castigated Hamm’s absence at meetings of the state Investment Board, which oversees the investment of more than two dozen funds, including pension funds for teachers and state government employees and the state’s workers compensation benefit fund.
Hamm said an Insurance Department representative attends the meetings and briefs him about what took place.
Schneider’s campaign ads are the “type of sleazy, partisan, in-the-beltway politics that plague our political system and drive people away from the process,” Hamm said.
Schneider believes there’s nothing wrong with the ads. “The only thing negative in this campaign is his record,” he said.
Schneider’s father, John, was a former North Dakota House Democratic leader who served as North Dakota’s U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration. John Schneider died of brain cancer in March 2001.
“Public service is something I’ve aspired to my whole life,” Schneider said.
He questioned his opponent’s motivation for the job, saying Hamm has pushed for appointments to become tax commissioner, U.S. attorney and a state district court judge.
“He waved his flag long enough and finally got appointed to something,” Schneider said.
Hamm says he never pushed to be tax commissioner after incumbent Rick Clayburgh resigned in May 2005. Hoeven appointed Cory Fong as Clayburgh’s successor, and “I have supported Cory right from the start,” Hamm said.
“Public service is what I want to do,” Hamm said. “I am running to be insurance commissioner.”
Hamm and Schneider said they did not have any immediate political aspirations beyond serving as insurance commissioner.
Both men have raised more than $140,000 for the campaign, and Hoeven, who has raised almost $2 million for his own re-election, has appeared in a television ad with Hamm to promote his appointee.
Schneider, who was elected to the North Dakota House in 2006, said he represents about a dozen injured workers weekly in legal disputes with the Workforce Safety and Insurance agency. The agency provides workers’ compensation coverage for businesses.
Just a year out of law school, Hamm helped handle the 1999 murder case of a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old Fargo girl. Kyle Bell is serving a life sentence for the murder of Jeanna North. The case, which received nationwide interest, helped prod North Dakota lawmakers to toughen state laws on tracking sex offenders.
Schneider said Hamm’s “prosecutor mentality” has hurt the relationship with Blue Cross Blue Shield. Hamm calls the Fargo health insurer “a monopoly that’s not working,” saying it represents 90 percent of the state’s health insurance business and that he has worked to encourage more health insurance competition in the state.
The Insurance Department regulates insurance companies that do business in North Dakota, and reviews their rates. It has 46 employees and a two-year budget of $14.5 million. The commissioner is paid $79,571 annually.
Both Hamm and Schneider say they could earn higher salaries in the private sector, but they say the insurance commissioner’s job is not about the money. And both are anxious for the Nov. 4 election to arrive.
“I think we’re both ready for it to be over and to let the voters decide,” Hamm said.