Miss. Commissioner Dale Defends Hiring Insurance Lobbyist as Lawyer

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Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale says he sees no conflict in his having been represented in a ballot dispute by Greg Copeland, an attorney who is a longtime lobbyist for the insurance industry.

“Yes, he is in my campaign. I have not hid that,” Dale told The Associated Press on Monday. “I have been very open about it. I don’t see any conflict.”

Copeland represented Dale in a successful legal battle to get the longtime commissioner back on this year’s ballots after the state Democratic Party executive committee, in a split vote, decided in March that Dale could not run in the party’s primary because he had supported President Bush’s re-election in 2004.

The committee’s decision came 21/2 weeks after the March 1 filing deadline for candidates in Mississippi elections. Dale, first elected in 1975, filed a lawsuit seeking to be put back on the ballot.

During a hearing on the lawsuit in late April, Copeland asked a judge to let Dale run as an independent. Copeland said then that news coverage of the case “has affected and diminished Dale’s ability to compete and win the Democratic primary election.”

The judge later ruled that Dale should be put back on the ballot for the Aug. 7 Democratic primary.

Dale on Monday described Copeland as “a good friend.”

“When you try to do something, you hire the best lawyer you can. He was the best lawyer available,” Dale said.

The commissioner said he doesn’t know whether either he or his campaign will pay for Copeland’s services.

“We haven’t talked about bills,” Dale said. “He just felt very strongly that I had been done wrong and volunteered to be helpful.”

Copeland was traveling Monday and could not immediately be reached.

Records show Copeland has been a registered lobbyist for the American Insurance Association since 2000 — the earliest date for which complete lobbying registration forms are posted to the Mississippi secretary of state’s Web site.

The Web site for Copeland’s Ridgeland law firm — Copeland, Cook, Taylor & Bush — says: “The firm serves as general counsel to Mississippi’s largest property and casualty insurer and as local counsel for numerous other insurance companies. The American Insurance Association selected the head of the firm’s insurance practice group to serve as Mississippi counsel for the Association.”

Copeland also is the attorney for the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association, known as the wind pool. It is the insurer of last resort in areas at risk for hurricanes.

Packets of information that raised questions about Copeland representing Dale were sent anonymously to The Associated Press, other media organizations and other groups around the state. AP independently verified information about Copeland’s lobbying history and law firm.

Gary Anderson, a former state fiscal officer who’s challenging Dale in the Democratic primary for insurance commissioner, said Monday that his campaign did not send the packets but did receive one. He said the link between Dale and Copeland “only shows the continued cozy relationship that George Dale enjoys with the insurance industry.”

“This kind of relationship only points out the fact, that the people of Mississippi deserve a fair deal,” Anderson said.

State Sen. Mike Chaney, a Republican running for insurance commissioner, said if he were commissioner, he would not use Copeland like Dale did.

“Since (Dale) is a candidate in the race and I am, too, I am not questioning his ethics or his reason for using Mr. Copeland,” Chaney said. “I’ll leave that to the voters.”

The other candidates for insurance commissioner — Democrat Jim Raspberry and Republican and Ronnie English — could not immediately be reached. Winners of the primaries advance to the Nov. 6 general election.