Big Tobacco Takes Aim

Source from:  registerguard.com By David Steves Wednesday, October 10, 2007 10/11/2007

The tobacco industry isn't just setting a record for spending on a ballot measure campaign. It's shattering the old one. A pair of industry-financed political action committees have combined to raise $9.2 million - more than 99.9 percent of it from the parent companies of R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris - as of Monday in their bid to defeat Measure 50. It would put in the Oregon Constitution an 84.5-cents-per-pack cigarette tax increase for children's insurance and other healthcare initiatives. Regardless of whether that total is compared with real-dollar or inflation-adjusted amounts raised in past ballot-measure campaigns, the opponents of Measure 50 have set a new standard for pumping cash into a bid to influence the outcome of a measure vote, said Sarah Wetherson of Democracy Reform Oregon. They have put a record-setting amount of money into it, by any measure, said Wetherson, research and outreach associate for the non-partisan group, which analyzes the influence of money in Oregon politics. Combined with the much smaller amount raised by Measure 50 supporters, the total amount raised in the fight over Measure 50 has surpassed the $10 million mark - with a month still to go before voting concludes on Nov. 6. The next closest campaign, in inflation-adjusted dollars, raised $7.1 million ($4.9 million actual dollars) to successfully fight a pair of 1992 initiatives that would have forced the closure of the Trojan nuclear plant. In actual dollars, $5.6 million was the most raised in a ballot-measure campaign - the sum put up in an unsuccessful 2004 push to disband SAIF, the state's worker's compensation insurance company. J.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds-backed campaign against Measure 50, said his side has no choice but to spend a large sum to get its messages across to voters. "It's not like we're trying to buy a ballot measure," Wilson said. "We are the ones who are trying to defend against what is essentially the easiest tax in the world to pass, which is a tax on somebody else." Cathy Kaufmann, spokeswoman for the campaign to pass Measure 50, said she's not surprised by the amount of money her adversaries are spending. "They're doing what they've tried to do in every state, which is to drown voters in misleading messages and hope that, at the very least, they can confuse voters," she said. Kaufmann's own side has raised $1.8 million, enough, she said, to be competitive in promoting the campaign and countering tobacco's arguments though ads, mailers and grass-roots work. The "yes" campaign hasn't been immune to scrutiny of its financial backers. Lisa Gilliam, spokeswoman for the Philip Morris-financed campaign, said the pro-50 side has been "trying to obscure the debate by focusing on the source of our funding." While the other side may have a more widespread base of contributors, Gilliam said, it is "clearly being financed by groups that stand to gain financially if it passes." At least 56 percent of the campaign's money so far has come from donors with ties to the health-care field: doctors, nurses, hospitals, HMOs, insurance companies and non-profit advocacy groups such as the American Heart and American Lung associations. The $1 million from these groups is dwarfed by the money contributed to the other side by two companies. Reynolds American, the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, has turned over $3.3 million. Philip Morris USA, another cigarette maker, and its parent company, Altria Group, contributed $5.8 million so far. That money has been paying for a heavy rotation of media advertising as well as mailings and other methods of getting the opposition's message out. Gary Conkling, a political consultant not involved with the Measure 50 campaign, said the strategy of the tobacco industry strikes him as similar to the approach it took to promote its products in the years before the health dangers prompted regulators to limit its advertising. The difference is that instead of trying to get more people to smoke, the industry is trying to get more people to vote against Measure 50, on the grounds that it gives a blank check to the government to misuse the money and that a tax on a product does not belong in the Oregon Constitution. "What tobacco companies have attempted to do is make it seem like everyone is doing it and it's normal," he said. "They want to create this sense that, maybe it's true because look how often it's said, and to convey that it would be a normal reaction to think, 'Oh my gosh. They shouldn't be putting it in the constitution.'" Conkling said he wasn't convinced the strategy would succeed, noting that the industry spent $4.7 million - $6 million in inflation-adjusted dollars - 11 years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat a cigarette-tax initiative. Enditem