McCarthy on Junkas: Are "Special Interests" Claims Valid?

Last week, I checked claims 37th House District candidate Jeffrey Junkas about Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-Orland Park) made on the website www.kevinamccarthy.com, which Junkas' campaign runs.

This week, I didn't need to seek out McCarthy's take; it was delivered to my doorstep in the form of a flier paid for by Voters for McCarthy.

A brief aside before I begin.

In this Fact Check, I will only be reviewing the section of the flier entitled "Jeffrey Junkas Puts Special Interests First," similar to how in the kevinamccarthy.com Fact Check, I only reviewed a post called "Kevin A. McCarthy Fails on Jobs," the Fact Check before that only reviewed the local Tea Party's mission statement rather than their whole website and the one before that only reviewed the section of state Sen. Maggie Crotty's newsletter that made claims about her record.

Why do I do it this way rather than, say, review the entire flier, newsletter or website?

Simply put, length. Going through these documents one line at a time makes for a darn long article. And writing an article no one is going to read helps no one.

I don't want to skip over sentences or do a cut-rate job reviewing these documents, so I choose to do one section to the best of my ability rather than do shoddy work on several sections. Disagree or agree, but that's why I do what I do.

And remember, the websites are still up (and I have screen captures so I'll know if they change 'em). The fliers haven't dissolved in my hand. There's nothing that says I can't go back and put other sections under the microscope too.

Anyway, on to "Jeffrey Junkas Puts Special Interests First."

Listing the Reasons

Jeffrey Junkas can't be trusted to look out for us. Junkas worked for a credit reporting agency and said he was "disappointed" when the federal courts ordered his firm to stop the practice of selling consumers' private financial data to marketing firms.

False. The company was selling lists based on the data. It wasn't selling the data itself, just the names and addresses of people who met certain criteria.

Marketing companies would ask Trans Union (and the other two credit reporting agencies Equifax and Experian, although they agreed to stop selling the lists years before) to put together lists of people who, say, had an auto loan. Or a department store credit card. Or two mortgages. Or one mortgage and a credit card with a $10,000 limit. You get the point.

But all that was sold was names and addresses, not the private financial data itself. A three-judge panel U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in April 2001 still ruled not to re-hear a Federal Trade Commission decision telling Trans Union to knock it off, but even they said it wasn't financial data.

"Although target marketing lists contain only names and addresses, purchasers know that every person on a list has the characteristics they requested because Trans Union uses those characteristics as criteria for culling individuals from its database," the opinion written by Judge David S. Tatel read in part.

The ruling was the final word in a battle that started in 1992, when the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against Trans Union for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

As for Junkas' role in these sales, here's the full quote from the Washington Post story McCarthy's campaign cited:

"We're disappointed with the court's decision," said company spokesman Jeffrey Junkas. "We haven't decided what our next step is going to be."

After a nine-year legal battle, a company spokesman said the company (we, not he, by the way) was "disappointed." Call that one how you see fit, but at least learn the back story.

Patagonian Toothfish

Until recently, Junkas worked as an insurance company mouthpiece and defended industry decisions to deny coverage and hurt consumers. If elected, Junkas would be a strong ally of powerful corporate interests – not the citizens of our community.

Ah, the English language. "Mouthpiece" instead of "spokesman" or the actual title, "director of public affairs for the Midwest Region of the American Insurance Association." Mouthpiece sounds scarier, doesn't it?

Of course, you do have to remember Junkas' campaign keeps labeling McCarthy the equally scary-sounding "entrenched incumbent," so we might have to call this one a moral draw.

Whenever you hear scary-sounding language like that, just remember that "regime" and "government" are synonyms and "Chilean sea bass" is something restaurants made up to make "Patagonian toothfish" sound edible.

Language aside, on to the claims. True and false.

Junkas was a spokesman for the American Insurance Association, the self-proclaimed "leading property-casualty insurance trade organization," representing more than 300 insurers.

The term "insurance company mouthpiece" is misleading. That makes it sound like he worked for an insurance company, not an association of several hundred insurance companies.

Here's where it gets to true and false. The AIA and the industry itself aren't insurance companies. They represent them. The AIA doesn't deny coverage. Individual insurers, like the ones AIA represents, sometimes do. So Junkas wasn't defending decisions to deny coverage, just defending the group that represents the companies that do deny coverage.

It's like saying a Department of Education spokesman teaches classes. Connected, but not the same.

Let's talk about what the AIA does and what Junkas did for them.

Here's a link to the group's description of its services. The Cliffs Notes version is this: They're a trade group. They hire lobbyists, they track legislation, court cases and regulatory actions that could affect the industry, they issue opinions on legislation, court cases and regulatory actions that just happened, they act as the face of the industry in the press and, for a fee, alert their members to trends and upcoming events in the industry.

Every group from the Toy Industry Association to the Newspaper Association of America does this, down to the lobbyists. Unfortunately (I say "unfortunately," because it would be hilarious), the American League of Lobbyists does not have a lobbyist. Think what you will of it, but then look up your profession and see if they have an association.

Here's where to search for U.S. House of Representative lobbyists and here's where to search for U.S. Senate lobbyists. That's not relevant, but it is fun.

As for what Junkas did for the group, this 2004 press release about Junkas' then-new job said he would be responsible for "media relations, strategic planning and grassroots activities in the eleven-state region."

Junkas' role as Midwest public affairs director involved a lot of communication with the press as you can see in this Google search citing times he had been quoted in the press. As you can see, the topics vary, including giving the insurance industry's take on Michigan's state of the state address to giving big-picture generalities about whether insurance companies will cover floods and if firefighter staffing affects insurance rates.

And here's a search of Junkas' name appearing on the AIA website. It shows a lot of the press releases he wrote, including this one praising the Legislature for three measures and this one criticizing them for passing another. Why am I pointing these out? Because these were the only press releases available on the site where Junkas wrote about measures that came up for a vote in the Illinois House.

And, each time, Kevin McCarthy voted in agreement with the AIA stance.