Dawn Bauman: 0:00

As very different at the federal and the state level. So at the state level, we do have an opportunity to make amendments and to work with legislators and to create legislation. At the federal level. It's so different if we want to make a minor change to a piece of legislation that's been introduced. It's nearly impossible. It's much more challenging, much lower. Also, at the federal level, things move quickly and productively at the state level.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 0:34

Common Sense for Common Areas, exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by for companies that care about board members, association insights and marketplace, association reserves, community financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 1:04

Welcome back to Hoa insights common sense for common areas. I'm Robert Nordlund. And I'm here today for episode number 62. With a special guest to talk about the forces that shape National Community Association legislation. There are state forces at work and national forces at work and there are important forces that shape that legislation, you should know so you can either participate in shaping that legislation or learn what's ahead to help your association prepare. Well I hope you enjoyed last week's live cast episode number 61. With myself and regular co hosts Kevin Davis and Julie admin, thinking on our feet and answering your questions live. Thank you for participating. We're here for you every week to set you up for success at your association. And being there to answer questions like the live ones that you heard that there's something that you all are probably going to have to deal with every so often. Well, if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, you can find them on our podcast website, Hoa insights.org, on your favorite podcast platform, or on our YouTube channel, where you can give the episode a like or make comments. But better yet, subscribe to the podcast from any of the most popular podcast platforms to get every episode delivered right to your phone or mobile device. We enjoy hearing from you. So if you have a question you'd like us to address, leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130 Leave a comment on a YouTube video or send us an email at podcast at reserve study.com. And the question that prompted Today's episode was from Alyssa from San Diego, who wrote where does all this legislation affecting our association come from? That's a great question. And that's exactly why we have today's guests with us. Dawn Bauman. Dawn is CIA's Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and the Executive Director of the Foundation for Community Association research. She's worked for CAI for more than 20 years at both the International and chapter level. And I might want to explain that, for those of you who don't know, CAI is the community Associations Institute. It's the International Trade Organization for all the parties coming together, working in with and in and on community associations, educating and advocating for successful communities. I first met dawn when she worked at a local CAI chapter. And she's a prime example of how the cream rises to the top. Dawn's exactly the right person to address state specific and national legislation here on our podcast, how it begins, what influences it, how it gets passed, and as necessary, how it gets revised. So Dawn, welcome to the program.

Dawn Bauman: 3:56

Thank you for having me.

Robert Nordlund: 3:57

Well, tell me what's an average day like for you? Sometimes I think that you've got to be like the Superwoman, just flying from here to there meeting with legislators, moving legislation, jumping over buildings with tall bounce, you know, just all these kinds of things. But is it that exciting? Or is it emails and zoom meetings like this? It's,

Dawn Bauman: 4:17

it's a lot of everything. But I first want to say, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I respect you so much. And it's really an honor to join you on the podcast. What is the typical day look like? Well, I will say last night, I had the great pleasure and opportunity to go to the congressional baseball game at net stadium. So it was the Republicans versus the Democrats, the Republicans won, and I have some good friends who were playing in that game and a lot of staffers that we're milling about a lot of really great opportunity to enjoy America's favorite pastime with some of America's leaders. It's not always that fun. Um, I don't always get to do those types of fun things. And right now CAI we are tracking Well, this year, this calendar year, we're tracking about 2000 pieces of legislation, that impacts Community Associations. And that's on the local, state, and federal level, that we track this legislation throughout the country, and work with our legislative action committees, we have 36 legislative action committees that do the work in advocating at the local state legislature for strong public policy for our members. So I do spend a lot of time on Zoom calls a lot of time talking with meeting with legislators, reading about legislation and trying to come up with our argument and detailed and talking points to support what's good for Community Association.

Robert Nordlund: 5:53

Right. So that's interesting, you got to read and find out, okay, this is good. There's a reason behind the reason that this is not good. There's a blind spot here, I see your good intentions, if you add this paragraph or change this word, are those the dynamics that you do to help make this come together on the positive side? Absolutely,

Dawn Bauman: 6:14

and with our legislative action committees, because we have our legislative action committee representatives from all of our different membership categories, so homeowner, leaders, managers, management companies, business partners, including reserve professionals, insurance, professional banks, attorneys, accountants, so oftentimes, I'm working with our attorneys to look at the legislation and see how we can make it better, our management company managers, everyone who, who serves on our committees, has an opportunity and has some great insight into how that language might be practically applied. So if we can take a look at it and make some changes, great, it sounds easy. Let's go and look at this legislation. And make it so that it's going to work for community associations, and then present it to legislators. Wow, I wish it was that easy. It's a little more complicated than that. Because negotiating with legislators and all the other stakeholders who might have an interest in a piece of legislation becomes challenging, as very different at the federal and the state level. So at the seat level, we do have an opportunity to make amendments and to work with legislators and to create legislation. At the federal level, it's so different to make if we have our federal legislative action committee, if we want to make a minor change to a piece of legislation that's been introduced, it's nearly impossible. It's much more challenging, much lower. Also, at the federal level, things move quickly and productively at the state level, which is fun which I enjoy. Okay,

Robert Nordlund: 7:59

well, that's interesting that you say that, because when I get my nose involved with legislation, I just I'm used to running a company. And we get to decide policy. And yesterday, we had a company retreat, and we made decisions, and we move on. And when I see state legislation, to me, it looks slow. And I appreciate that there are so many different forces involved. But I think I'm understanding the gravity, that state legislation looks fast compared to federal, we look at the big issues in this country, we're in an election year at this point in time. And those are some big challenges facing the country. And they are still there from months ago, because they are so hard to solve. But I'm glad that we're here in the community association industry where a slice of what legislators do and I like, where the path you're going down that you can get involved. And you can speak into the ears of those legislators saying that you may not know but this is how community associations run. You may not know but this is a practical impossibility. And just the fascinating the ways that their faces can light up. And whether it's the legislator or the staffer, all of a sudden, you realize you've made progress, and you're part of legislation that's going to make our state a better place.

Dawn Bauman: 9:21

Absolutely. So when we talk about state legislatures, keep in mind that there are only a couple of states, New Jersey, Ohio, California, Washington, DC, maybe a couple of others that have full year of legislative session. Most of the states almost every other state has a 60 90 120 day legislative session. So things have got to move quickly. Oftentimes, while I can, I can see how one would think it moves slowly because for example, when we look at condominium safety legislation that's happen since the tragedy and in Surfside, Florida 2021.

Robert Nordlund: 10:06

Yeah, three years on June 24

Dawn Bauman: 10:09

Three years coming up next week. So we've seen 4 states have legislation, specifically using our recommendations for policy issues that would improve condominium safety in their state or state. And we are super pleased with four states. And it's been three years. Other states have also introduced legislation, but it just hasn't yet passed. Remember, we're talking 30 60 90 120 days in some of these states. And when you have some of these concepts that can be technical, confusing, unfamiliar. So just to start talking about these concepts, sometimes takes a couple of years at the state level as a federal level, to build consensus, to share the message to demonstrate why the demonstrate importance for the legislative initiatives that we're proposing. So we feel like we've made great progress. And and we are continued to be committed to condominium safety public policy throughout the country. Now we want to do it in a way that works well, practically for the communities and the homeowners in those in those states as well. So it takes some time to to work out some of those details, and especially at the state level. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 11:33

And then I think then we have some additional complications, like I think Nevada, doesn't the legislature meet every other year,

Dawn Bauman: 11:40

then Montana, Montana and Nevada and Texas did not meet this year, they'll meet next year, and Nevada and Texas are complicated states when it comes to Community Association legislation. So we always have a bit of a sigh of relief when they're out of session. A lot, you know, or your question asks, How did legislation come about? And that's a great question, how is it that we're tracking 2000 pieces of legislation across the US, I'll tell you what, many of those pieces of legislation come from individual homeowners who are somehow dissatisfied with something that happened in their community. So maybe they wanted to fly a flag, a flag, not an American flag, because everyone's supplied American flags, maybe they want to fly a, it's Pride Month, a gay pride flag.

Robert Nordlund: 12:38

Or marine, or you got a former Marine or no one's a Marine,

Dawn Bauman: 12:41

or a POW, um, they want to fly those flags. But the

Robert Nordlund: 12:42

Right. And I think about it the reasons community has a no flag rule except for the the American flag. So then they go to their legislators like, this is ridiculous, I should be able to fly a flag. I also want to paint my house pink, I also want to, you know, all of these, these little nuances where people become frustrated with their community association, or they couldn't maybe put up a dinosaur in their front yard or have holiday lights for six months, three months. Yeah. So that's where a lot of the legislation comes from. And then it becomes our legislative action committees, and advocates that so then if your listeners want to be an advocate, I want to tell them how to get involved because we need you. We speak with legislators and help them behind the reasons, because someone can have a flashpoint understand how these rules are developed. Because if one person wants to fly the flag, it's oft- a flag, not the American flag. It's often the other 90% of the community, They don't want flags in their community, they find them to be divisive. So they don't want them in their community. And they don't like the way they look. So would say, democratic process within that community. But sometimes legislators don't know that. And that's not what comes to mind when they hear somebody who potentially is having what they think is their property rights issue. There's a little handicapped kid in our being withheld from them. So it's it's an it's always a an educational process to share information about the way the community association housing model works, or, or owner. neighborhood. And we only want to do this for this precious child and agreed, you only want to do this for this precious child. But there are other implications and the legislators don't necessarily know that and then some of it comes back to the board of directors and the community. We'd like to say, for our podcast listeners, they've heard it before lowering the temperature, what can we do to be a welcoming community? What can we do to be board members who know the nuance between the perfection of enforcing all the rules and the embracing of The reality that not everything goes exactly according to plan. And those are tough nuances. And, again, we want to celebrate board members and encourage them to be the best that they can be and lead their communities forward. And sometimes, there's got to be a mixture of truth and grace to be wise in leading the community and not have someone explode and reach out to the legislator. And all of a sudden you have potentially powerful legislation that can have its own disruptive forces, again, the reasons behind the reason. So let's take a quick break from the podcast. We'll be right back. After we hear from one of our sponsors to hear about how you can get involved in the legislative action process.

Paige Daniels: 15:47

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Robert Nordlund: 16:18

And we're back. Well, during our break, Dawn and I were talking about being involved in the legislative process and the very positive impact that can have not only on your association, but for all the others in your state or community. So Dawn, tell us a little bit more about being involved in the legislative process.

Dawn Bauman: 16:37

The Wire, well involvement ranges, right. So you can be a legislator, you can be an lobbyist, you can be a volunteer advocate, you could be a member of CAI or not a member of CAI, I'm gonna tell you some of the options that we have. First of all, CAI is really fortunate. We have 36 lobbyists around the country, including a federal team, I'm a registered lobbyist as well, and lobbyists at our lobbying team. Often we've had at the state level, some of them for 10 20 years, they are known as the condo HOA person in their state. They're phenomenal. They are what they make it all work for us. We have the expertise on the subject matter experts on our legislative action committee, which is a great opportunity for involvement, we have about 600 volunteers serving on our legislative action committees. So if you're interested, please give me a shout. I'm happy to connect you with your local legislative action committee. But even more than that, we have ambassadors, we have advocates, so we have an ambassador program for people to get involved, if you are a manager or management company. And you want to be an ambassador, and be an ambassador with all of your community association clients, to engage your community clients with members of the legislature, we need you, also homeowner leaders to engage their homeowners, and business partners as well. So what we do is we set up monthly tasks, for those ambassadors to do reach out to your legislator with this information, just letting them know who you are letting them know that community associations are an area of interest to you, youre resource to them, attend a town hall meeting, et cetera, et cetera. And we also have calls to action, which are emails or messages that we send out to our membership and advocate, urging them to contact their member of the legislature for whatever reason to support or oppose a piece of legislation.

Robert Nordlund: 18:37

Dawn can I just put in a plug in there? Because I'm a recipient of those and CAI makes it so easy. You just put in your name. If my recollection is correct, put in your name, put your zip code, your address. And they've got Suggested Wording, it just, it just makes it easy. And we want the educated members here educated podcast audience, people who care about their community, we want to make sure your voice is getting to the legislators, your voice is shaping legislation, not just the outside forces. And there are so many outside forces. And yes, they have their interest, but we're trying to build peaceful and productive communities here. And it takes homeowner voices, and we don't want to be the unheard majority. So this is incredible leverage that you have to speak up and make sure that the interest of homeowners, managers, the professionals who serve the community, so Community Association industry that their voice is heard,

Dawn Bauman: 19:40

and I'll tell you what, Robert, studies show that the most impactful communication to a legislator is directly from a constituent. So a constituent living in a district saying hey, this issue is important to me, and here's why. The number one most impactful way we can influence legislation, we as an industry. So engaging our constituents and our members is critical. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 20:07

And I read a statistic that the number of people contacting their legislator is incredibly small. So if we have 10 or 50 people speaking to a legislator on a specific topic that makes a difference.

Dawn Bauman: 20:21

Absolutely absolutely. And another thing that we do is we encourage community associations, to invite their legislators, whether it's their locality, their city council, Town Council, or their state delegate, or their member of Congress, invite them to their community, invite them to their business, show them what they do. If you're having an event, let's say you're having, you know, a big Fourth of July event, invite members of Congress to come and witness what you're doing. Because then when they see legislation later that impacts the community that they they're gonna remember your community, and they might call you. And they might say, What do you think of it, which is a dream,

Robert Nordlund: 21:03

right? And they're gonna think these are real people. These aren't real community association things. Right? Oh, yeah, there you go. I'm a voter I care. And yes we have wonderful place here. And we have a happy community. So don't get distracted by the one or two voices that you hear about a problem here or a problem there. We want to make sure that the legislators hear the voice that we have a lot of great communities here. And there's a lot of great things about them.

Dawn Bauman: 21:35

Because remember, when I said, How did legislation get introduced, it's those people who I would say the majority of legislation, more than 50% people who are dissatisfied with something within their communities. So if we can invite members of Congress and state legislators and local council members, to our communities, just show them how happy people are. And to show them what we do, it will have a big impact on those individual constituents that are dissatisfied for some reason or another.

Robert Nordlund: 22:06

Right, another element may be knowing the issues. And so you can communicate it to your homeowners in a board meeting and saying these are the issues. This is upcoming bill. And let's leverage our 37 homeowners, let's leverage our 182 votes here to make sure that this happens, or to make sure this does not happen, because that's going to affect life in our community. And all of a sudden you realize 50 votes here. 100 votes here. That's starting to make a difference.

Dawn Bauman: 22:34

Absolutely. You got it.

Robert Nordlund: 22:37

Oh, I like this um you're getting me a little jazzed. Yeah, you're getting me all jazzed up here.

Dawn Bauman: 22:41

Yeah You know, you know how it works.

Robert Nordlund: 22:43

Yeah. Well, I was affected in significantly in 2021, with the tragic collapse of champlain tower south. And that made an issue the budgeting issue that in my world was just how much are we going to recommend an association to set aside towards reserves? at a higher number or a lower number, and all of a sudden, that budget issue became a life safety issue. And every once in a while, you'll get an an issue like this, or an idea that just has, it's a problem that needs to get wrestled with. And that's why we need to be a part of the process. And up to that time, I had thought that lobbyists were kind of slimy, people working on the side, doing things for big business, that he thought that was the swamp, I thought that was the swamp. And then I realized they're the people that helped get me the phone number, or I got pictures of me shaking hands with legislators, because now I'm able to tell them, This is how reserves work. This is how community associations work. And they're going, I didn't know that, you know, things like that, I realized that the legislators are trying to do a good job. They're working absolutely, and they're just pulled by so many different agendas. And the lobbyists are just the people who say, this is how it works. The legislators come and go, make sure you smile at the staff members, because they're the stable people that have been there for years. And just all those different kinds of things that you realize, oh, yes, I need to know this. And they help you be more effective with your time.

Dawn Bauman: 24:17

And I will I agree with that legislators are almost always, almost always in it to do something good for their community, something good for their state, something thats for their district, they are in it to serve the people. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of legislators that I've met are in it to serve people, and where we need to be in it to help educate them, so that they can make good decisions for their constituents. That's part of the way it works

Robert Nordlund: 24:48

Well, I almost feel like to our audience here, their volunteer board members, they're already spending a lot of time for their community and we're almost I feel like we're almost asking them to spend a little more time volunteering.

Dawn Bauman: 25:00

It's fun, it's so much fun.

Robert Nordlund: 25:03

Well, the word I would say is leverage. Because the time you spend for your community does help with your 58 units or 580 units, things like that. But the time you spend in legislation, it's exactly the same amount of time, but all of a sudden, it can be statewide. And you're making the place better for future board members and future homeowners. And that leverage is what keeps me going. When I talk when I think about legislative issues, that there's a lot of power here. And we don't want to just draw back and let things happen outside of us.

Dawn Bauman: 25:38

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Right. Okay, together, our collective voice can be very powerful.

Robert Nordlund: 25:44

Oh, wow. We're talking about 400,000 associations across the country, isn't it? Something like that? Yeah,

Dawn Bauman: 25:51

almost 375,000 community associations in the US 73 million to 78 million people living in associations collectively, our voice can be very powerful.

Robert Nordlund: 26:01

better part of 100 million people. And that's a voice here. And I think we want to remind ourselves that we're not just one association at a time, we're part of a very big picture here. Well, Dawn, what are the challenges facing you at this time? What are their legislative issues? are their states, are there one or two or three things that are puzzles that you're trying to solve?

Dawn Bauman: 26:25

I'm, I will tell you top of mind is, top of mind is the Corporate Transparency Act. Oh gee yeah, the corporate Transparency Act that passed in 2021. And Community Associations will be required to comply with December by December 31 2024. We didn't believe that community associations have gotten swept into this legislation unintentionally, we're not exempt. We're working on trying to get an exemption trying to get up carved out of the Corporate Transparency Act filing requirements, really a burden, it's really going to create problems for community associations. So that is top of mind. We're working a lot with members of Congress and also with regulators regulators. And you know, potentially filing a lawsuit against the federal government to exempt community associations from this so that it is top-of-mind challenge for this entire industry and all of the community associations.

Robert Nordlund: 27:27

I think condo safety, I think of collections, I think of so many other things that have to do with how associations run. But this one, it seems like the idea is well intended, the idea is conceptually a good idea for our country. But all it does for community associations make life harder for board members,

Dawn Bauman: 27:47

maybe for small businesses, not for community associations like we also the Department of Treasury has already said they believe that community associations they are local nonprofit, they're at very low risk for money laundering and terrorist activity. But you mentioned condo safety. And I will say, you know, coming up again, on the third anniversary, CAI is absolutely committed to condominium safety. And we continue our commitment to condominium safety. As a matter of fact, I have a rock, a piece of rubble from the tower that collapsed on my desk that inspires me every day to pursue condominium safety initiatives for all the condominiums here in the US and around the world. So that is absolutely a challenge and commitment for our organization as well.

Robert Nordlund: 28:39

Yeah, I had a business trip to Florida in December of 2021. And I made my way to the champlain tower South site. And I talked myself to the guard, and he let me in. And I just stood there. And it was a sobering, sobering moment. It was quiet. And I felt like the ground just wreaked of tragedy. And so you can't shower that off You can't get rid of that. So there are all these different things. Yeah. So yes, so we need to forge ahead, Dawn, just the kind of things that you've been speaking about makes it very clear that you're the right person to be in this position. And it's been great to have you on this episode today sharing some of your insights and some of your wisdom. Any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Dawn Bauman: 29:32

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. It's really been my pleasure, 2 closing thoughts. One, I would love anyone to get involved who wants to get involved. If you email me or go to our website, caionline.org/takeaction you can learn way more about how to get involved. And and the the other thing is today is International Community Association Managers day. So I want to give a shout out of accolades and celebration, respect and reward to all the community association managers here in the US and throughout the world to do so much and have such a great impact on the lives of so many people living community.

Robert Nordlund: 30:15

Fantastic. Well, for more information or if you have follow up questions for Dawn, you can reach her at dbauman@caionline.org That's dbauman@caionline.org Well, we hope you'll learn some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 30:43

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