New Tobacco money Report released

Source from:  californialung.org On July 19, 2007 07/30/2007

The American Lung Association of California's Center for Tobacco Policy & Organizing released a new report on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by tobacco interests. Tobacco Money in California Politics shows that tobacco interests spent more than $68 million to influence California elections and legislative policy during the two-year election cycle covered from January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006. More specifically, tobacco interests contributed $66 million to candidates and members of the California Legislature, constitutional officers, political committees and state ballot initiative campaigns, and spent more than $2 million on lobbying expenditures. A link to the complete report is below, as well as a link to The Center's news release. Also below, is a search function that allows you to search by zip code to see if your legislators accepted contributions from tobacco interests. Highlights of the report include: A majority of the state legislators serving during the 2005-2006 legislative session, 42 Assembly Members and 21 Senators or 53 percent of the legislature, accepted contributions from the tobacco interests during the 2005-2006 election cycle, an increase of five percent from the 2003-2004 election cycle. New state legislators for the 2007-2008 legislative session accepted campaign contributions from tobacco interests at an even higher rate as 56 percent of new members (22 out of 39) elected in November 2006 accepted these contributions. More than $62 million was spent in the November 2006 election by the tobacco interests on the opposition campaign to Proposition 86 (Tobacco Products Tax Initiative), which would have raised the tax on cigarettes by $2.60/pack. Proposition 86 was defeated by a vote of 51.7 to 48.3 percent. Enditem