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Car Rental Tax Increase Defeat

Situation:

The Florida Legislature was poised in 2006 to pass a bill allowing Central Florida counties to double the per-day tax assessed on rental cars. At the time, the measure had broad support from conservatives in the Legislature and newspaper editorial writers and appeared likely to pass. Our client, a coalition of car rental companies, engaged us to help them send an urgent, high-profile appeal to the governor and tax opponents in the Legislature to halt the tax increase. Because the car rental tax legislation would allow counties to decide for themselves whether to levy the higher tax, several conservatives leaders believed their vote for the bill did not raise taxes per se, and thus did not violate pledges they had signed to oppose any and all new taxes. The bill also had wide support as a means to fund needed transportation improvements in Central Florida. Yet, opposing the proposed tax increase was a broad coalition of business travelers, tax opponents, travel agents and consumers in general whose interests would be adversely affected by the new tax. If these groups could speak in unison, they would be a powerful voice of opposition to the legislation.

Strategy:

Our objective was to convince conservative policymakers that voting for the car rental tax increase would break their pledges not to raise taxes and hurt key constituencies. We also needed to outline solid conservative arguments against the legislation to give political cover to leaders such as Gov. Jeb Bush to stop the car rental tax increase from becoming law. We developed key messages for the media and for legislators as to how the bill would hurt tourism, business travelers and other key Florida stakeholders. We also provided the media with a list of all the legislators who had signed pledges not to raise new taxes, many of whom were supporting the tax bill. Shortly before a key committee vote, over a single weekend, we conceptualized, arranged and executed a news conference outside the state Capitol with representatives from AAA, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Business Travel Association and the Consumer Federation of the Southeast to urge legislators and the governor to oppose the tax increase. We then turned over the podium to several members of the Legislature who opposed the bill. Those legislators, and our message, received broad coverage in the Florida press and made an impression on key policymakers. We also produced a compelling 30-second spot in opposition to the increased and made a smart, targeted purchase of airtime in Tallahassee when lawmakers were most likely to see it, gaining excellent visibility on a very limited advertising budget.

Outcome:

While the Legislature did pass the car rental tax bill, our work helped to prompt a veto by Gov. Jeb Bush. Echoed in his veto message were many of the arguments we had rolled out at the news conference.