The smoking habit

So just how big of a “welcome back” do you give something that was only gone for just a little while?

It’s a question that Capitol watchers could be asking themselves after the recent Common Cause report that found there was a “re-emergence” of big tobacco contributions to California lawmakers in the 1999-2000 election cycle.

Philip Morris Companies—which changed its name to the Altria Group Inc. last week—pumped a whopping $1.3 million into 1999-2000 campaigns, placing it in the top 10 contributors to legislators for the first time since 1995-1996, coming in at number three.

Philip Morris’ contributions were the bulk of the $1.5 million that tobacco companies as a whole gave to California politicians in 1999-2000, an increase of 173 percent from 1997-1998. The $1.5 million mirrors the contribution from 1993-1994 and 1995-1996.

So while there was a dip in tobacco largesse, it was temporary and for one election cycle. Only don’t tell that to the anti-tobacco folks in Sacramento who say big tobacco has been a steady influence, if only behind the scenes.

“As a lobbyist I can tell you the tobacco industry hasn’t gone away,” said Paul Kanepprath, vice president of government relations for the American Lung Association of California.

The days when tobacco interests seemed to permeate every facet of Capitol life are over. Contributions to powerful Sacramento politicians like former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and others were able to hold off the anti-smoking folks for a while, but once tobacco companies became America’s favorite corporate punching bag, the jig was up. Big tobacco is still active, but it’s more behind-the-scenes now.

Anti-tobacco advocates said that pro-tobacco forces don’t often publicly oppose legislation that would do it harm. Instead, the focus is on lobbying legislators and coughing up campaign cash. There’s now wide recognition of the difficulty in taking any position that favors tobacco—a product that ultimately kills.

So industry must now stealthily derail legislation. And there are plenty of bills they’d like to kill.

Tobacco interests have had some success in the last few years. One example is legislation (SB 2070) authored by then Democratic Senator Adam Shiff in 2000 that would have required the industry to make cigarettes less combustible, in order to reduce the number of cigarette-started fires. Tobacco companies said that the new standards proposed by Shiff would make their product less desirable to consumers.

Shiff got his bill out of the Senate, but once it landed in the Assembly, there was trouble before the Committee on Governmental Organization. Ultimately the 19-member committee—12 Democrats and 7 Republicans—voted 5-2 to defeat the bill. Twelve members abstained, including: Democrat Mike Machado, who took $80,344 in tobacco contributions in the 1999-2000 election cycle; Democrat Dennis Cardoza, who took $73,500; and Chair Herb Wesson, who took $16,692.

Certainly, there have been legislative victories as well—mostly having to do with restricting tobacco sale and access to minors—but anti-tobacco advocates are almost unanimous in saying that California can do better in controlling and preventing tobacco use. And they’re almost unanimous in laying the blame at Governor Gray Davis’ feet.

“The big story has been with the governor,” said Michael Givel, assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma. “There have not been increases in money for tobacco control policy, even though the state has received large amounts of cash from settlements with tobacco companies.”

Givel co-authored a University of California, San Francisco, report on California tobacco policy, which found that Davis actively campaigned against or vetoed legislation that would have earmarked tobacco settlement money to pay for prevention and control. Davis contended that money generated by 1988’s Proposition 99, which increased state taxes on cigarettes, was enough to allocate to tobacco education and control. Instead, Davis has used the tobacco settlement money to bolster the general fund, which according to the American Lung Association’s Kanepprath, is just fine with the tobacco companies.

“We are supposedly the leadership state in tobacco control,” said Kanepprath. “It’s an embarrassment that the dollars aren’t going to prevention.”

Kanepprath said, however, that he doesn’t think there’s a “tobacco boogeyman” behind Davis’ decisions. And in fact, Davis hasn’t received donations from tobacco companies. That freed him to reverse a Wilson-era policy of not funding public service attacks on tobacco use and spend $20 million of settlement money on a youth anti-smoking program last year. But still, that’s only $20 million out of California’s 2001 settlement payment of $476 million.

Ironically, when legislators do propose legislation that on its face seems like a blow against big tobacco, sometimes anti-smoking advocates derail it. That happened in the case of AB 744 (by Wesson and Democrat Assemblyman Paul Koretz). Assembly Bill 744 would have required California to license and regulate business that manufacture, distribute and sell tobacco products.

The bill, introduced in 2001, never even got to a committee hearing because anti-tobacco advocates didn’t like that under the bill, enforcement of the regulated businesses would be handled by the Alcohol Beverage Commission. The advocates wanted the California Department of Health Services, which has experience in tobacco enforcement, to handle enforcement. Their disagreement with the authors was enough to scuttle the bill.

But Koretz isn’t quite done. Last year, he introduced AB 1453, which in its first incarnation would have outlawed tobacco marketing below four feet in retail outlets, where kids easily see it. The measure passed the Assembly in June 2001. But after a late June Supreme Court ruling which held that states couldn’t regulate tobacco advertising—the justices said it was a free-speech issue—Koretz shifted his bill to prohibit ashtrays on premises where smoking is prohibited and outlaw distribution of free samples of tobacco products by mail to anyone who has not been previously identified as a consumer of tobacco products. The measure has stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Aides to Koretz said that the reason the legislation is stalled is that some senators don’t believe the bill does enough. So, according to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, Koretz’s office is considering adding measures to bulk up the bill, including raising the minimum age that consumers would be able to buy tobacco products to 21.

That, most likely, would bring out the tobacco lobbyists—and their cash—in droves. But it’s not only the tobacco companies who have something to fight. It’s also their distributors.

Democratic Assemblyman Howard Wayne has introduced legislation (AB 1768) that would close a longtime tax loophole for tobacco distributors. Distributors currently pay 87 cents per pack of cigarettes in tax. Since the ’60s, however, the state has given them a .85 percent discount per pack—which saves distributors about $4.44 a case (there are 60 cartons in a case).

Wayne’s legislation, which is sponsored by the Davis administration and the Heart Association, would only apply the .85 percent discount to the first 10 cents of the 87 cents tax, giving the state an extra $8.4 million a year for tobacco control initiatives and other measures.

When the measure got to the Committee on Revenue and Taxation last week, chair Ed Chavez—a Democrat—recommended that the bill be held on suspense, which essentially means death. Luckily for the anti-smoking folks, Democratic Assemblyman Simon Salinas made a motion to get it out of committee, which it did by a 4-2 vote (Chavez abstained). Now the bill moves to the Appropriations Committee.

The whole affair, however, harkened back to the days when big tobacco ruled the roost. Chavez, after all, took $20,000 in Philip Morris money in the 1999-2000 legislative cycle and another $3,000 late last year.

Apparently, some old habits are hard to break.