The Voice of Reason: Politics and Your Fire Department- Working With Your Representative

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“If you help a fire department, you help the entire community.”

Be prepared to enter the world of fire legislation and gain an understanding on how to advance the issues near and dear to your agency to the point where they become state law.

Illinois State Representative Donald Moffitt (R-Gilson) has truly been an invaluable asset to the Illinois fire service.  He is the committee chair of the Fire Protection Committee, and served as co-chair of the Fire Department Funding House Task Force, which we’ll detail in this program. Throughout his service as representative since 1992, Don has earned several awards and accolades from various agencies across the state.

As we begin, Representative Moffitt talks about his beginnings in the state legislature and how he developed a special fondness for the fire service.  Above all, he offers this advice: “I would urge all fire departments to be on a first name basis with their legislators.”

Representative Moffitt helped establish the Illinois Fire Task Force, out of which came the Illinois Fire Caucus, which regularly meets with the fire service (chiefs, inspectors, firefighters, trustees) in search of ideas that garners unanimous support from all corners of the fire service.  Once those are identified and receive unanimous consent by the fire service, they are then advanced through the legislative process with a resounding level of success.

Key legislation for which Representative Moffitt and others have been able to bring to reality includes the incredibly popular Zero-percent (interest free) revolving loan fund for which approximately 140 pieces of apparatus have been purchased interest-free throughout the State of Illinois. As the loans are repaid, the funds are made available to new applicants, making this a perpetual program.

Some of the funding for these programs comes from the imposition of additional fines on certain traffic offenses, as well as the ability for a judge to make an award to a local responding agency in which certain traffic laws were violated.

Art asks Don to walk us through the legislative process of the making of a law, from an idea to the Governor’s signature.  The representative distinguishes the necessary role of a fire agency involved in the legislative process from that of an agency just becoming “political”.  He talks about all the various entities that may have an interest in the issue being legislated, and describes the role of the lobbyist in the process.

Discussion turned to legislation currently awaiting the Governor’s signature regarding the new class of licensure in Illinois called Critical Care Transport, enabling the same level of care offered by helicopters transportation that is offered by helicopters for inter-hospital transports.

During that process the Illinois Department of Public Health identified a very few EMT licenses which had been issued to convicted sex felons.  Previously there was no law prohibiting that.  Now, new legislation has been drafted to enable IDPH to revoke those licenses, and awaits the Governor’s signature.

Finally, Art presses Don for some insight into his personal interests and fun activities, and we end the show with some great advice applicable to firefighters all across the nation.

The next Voice of Reason program is scheduled for July 28.  Watch here for more information!