As AOPA's president, Phil Boyer has championed the rights of general aviation pilots for the past 15 years.
When most of our members think about AOPA advocacy efforts, what come to mind are the big federal issues, but some of our most important battlegrounds are in the state legislatures. AOPA is called on every day to "promote, protect, and defend" general aviation interests across the country. In addition to our more traditional advocacy for airports, during the past few years our Regional Affairs staff has reviewed thousands of bills across the 50 states, and actively followed and engaged in supporting or opposing a few hundred of them.
These bills have covered a wide range of topics, including aviation funding, taxes and fees, airport operations, environmental issues, land use and zoning issues, and security issues, just to name a few. We attempt to share these issues with members each week in our AOPA ePilot bulletins, but often in only the regional editions for individual states, so many members are not made aware of the depth and breadth of AOPA's state advocacy.
To manage this growing list of efforts at the state level, in the past two years your association has expanded and realigned the Regional Affairs staff. Working with the AOPA Airport Support Network, and the 13 AOPA regional representatives, last year the headquarters group tracked some 500 bills around the country that affected general aviation, and was engaged in more than 75 of them. We're also not averse to seeking outside assistance on your behalf when the issue goes beyond our capabilities. This year, as in the past, we have retained contract lobbyists in four states to assist us with particular efforts. For instance: in California with a Santa Monica Municipal Airport bill; Trenton, New Jersey, is the capital of a volatile state for GA issues, and our resource there monitors all legislation; in North Carolina a lobbyist has worked with us on saving Horace Williams Airport; and recently our "hired gun" in Ohio met with my staff and me in Cincinnati to make a round of calls on city officials regarding the Cincinnati-Blue Ash Airport issue.
An important part of our state advocacy effort is to increase AOPA's recognition among state decision makers as the premier voice of GA across the nation. As part of that effort, this year AOPA has participated in "aviation visibility" days in Sacramento, California; Phoenix; Des Moines; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Boston. The Phoenix visit sparked Arizona's first Annual Aviation Day, in which AOPA played a major role. We also have engaged with national organizations of state and local governments that have much to say about the fate of local airports and aviation activities. These groups are the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Counties, and the National League of Cities. States, counties, and cities own many local public-use airports, and we hope to help these organizations develop national and local policies on a wide variety of issues that affect GA.
We have identified some 137 active GA pilots, including 50 active and 41 former AOPA members, currently elected and in service across the 50 statehouses and established the first-ever "AOPA State Legislative Caucus." These individuals will serve as an important initial contact point for the Regional Affairs staff as they grow their network of lobbying relationships. If you are a member of a state legislature, or a local governing body, please let me know, so I can have you added to this important caucus.
As technology reshapes everything we do, state advocacy is no exception. We have developed the electronic infrastructure to match the nation's roughly 7,500 state legislators with the individual AOPA members in the legislative districts. This advanced tool enables us to not only engage AOPA members on critical state/local issues, but also track and follow up these pilot-legislator communications in support of AOPA goals. This powerful new tool directly links our members with their state legislators to send a message before they cast votes on critical aviation issues. We have just begun using it, and have already seen a big impact.
A great recent example was in Minnesota, where we received word that the governor might have been persuaded to veto landmark legislation that protected the state's airports, and might do so as early as the next day. We immediately contacted the 5,700 Minnesota members for whom we have e-mail addresses with this news, and asked them to contact the governor and urge him to sign the bill. By that afternoon, the governor's office contacted us to say that he had signed the bill, and would we please ask our members to stop calling!
Through a combination of hard work from your staff in Frederick, Maryland, the Airport Support Network, our regional representatives, and a few lobbyists we have created a terrific team that has already served you well, and will be engaged in the growing number of state legislative battles. Your association fights not only in the halls of Congress in the nation's capital, but also in statehouses, county courthouses, and local city halls. Wherever the fight takes us, our missions remain the same — to protect pilots' access to airports and keep the cost of flying as affordable as possible. So, next time you get the message that we need your help, you know why.
For additional and specific information on aviation-related issues affecting your state, visit AOPA Online.
