In tribute to the final days of the 2010 legislative session, Ibring you insight from a previous century. Along with James Madisonand John Jay, Alexander Hamilton authored The Federalist Papers(1787-1788), a series of 85 political essays that illustrated theproblems of this new government being crafted. In one essay,Hamilton posed and answered the following question: Why hasgovernment been instituted at all? Because the passions of men willnot conform to the dictates of reason and justice, withoutconstraint.

A brilliant man, Hamilton's life began and ended in notoriety.He was born in 1757 on the West Indies Island of Nevis, theillegitimate son of a Scottish merchant, and died in 1804 followinga duel with Aaron Burr.

He was also a bit of a pain, especially to those he disliked.The bad blood between Hamilton and Burr was years in the making. In1800, Hamilton prevented Burr from winning the presidency bychampioning Thomas Jefferson instead. (Ironic, since Hamiltonthoroughly disliked Jefferson. However, while he consideredJefferson a political hack, he thought Burr dishonorable.) Burrended up serving one unhappy term as Jefferson's vice president.When he ran for governor of New York in 1804, Burr took exceptionto further criticism from Hamilton and challenged him to the famousduel. When they met on July 11, 1804, Burr proved the better shot(although some reports claim that Hamilton fired into the air, notat Burr). Hamilton died the following day.

Why does Hamilton matter to us today, other than to show thatpolitics back then was much more exciting? Because he also wrotethe following: Men often oppose a thing merely because they havehad no agency in planning it, or because it may have been plannedby those whom they dislike.

In other words, partisanship has been with us since ourformation, and it will continue to play pivotal roles in how ourelected officials conduct the business of the people. (Well, exceptin the case of Gov. Charlie Crist, where party affiliation seemsnot to matter at all.) Due to deadline constraints, I write thisbefore the final week of the 2010 session. The fate of variouslegislation has been changing hourly amid new amendments, threatsof vetoes, and declarations that this bill or that one was dead.With so much undecided, I cannot applaud or berate our lawmakers'final actions. However, if past is prologue, no one will beentirely happy with the results, and important votes may be castfor reasons other than altruistic. On the positive side, nogunfire.

Moving onto a different but again positive topic, we are nowfully into our Florida convention season. In our April 2010 issue,we gave you the run-down on what groups were going where and when.(Go to www.floridaunderwriter.com if you need a memory jog.)

Kicking off the festivities was an organization that has beenoff the convention circuit for some time. PIA of Florida, Inc.,teamed up with the PIA Western Alliance to present Agent Expo 2010on April 19-20 in Orlando, its first large conference in 14 years.I drove over to see what was happening, and found some 500attendees and vendors chatting about "Innovations in Insurance,"the conference's theme. CEO Mark O'Connell was a decidedly happycamper at the turnout. He told me that 90 to 95 percent of theattendees were agency principals, and credited an aggressivemarketing campaign for getting the word out and promoting theevent. Just another reminder that advertising and marketing dowork.

I look forward to seeing many of you over the next few months.Next up for me, the Florida Association of Health UnderwritersSymposium and Expo May 5-7 in Orlando, and a pit stop at the NCCIAnnual Issues Symposium 2010 on May 6-7, also in Orlando.