How it's done - tobacco industry hardball lobbying tactics

Ever wonder how the tobacco industry manages to block smoking restrictions, hold down cigarette taxes and weaken laws limiting tobacco sales to children? A package of internal documents from Philip Morris USA, obtained and released by the Texas-based health advocacy group Doctors Ought to Care, offers a glimpse.

The interoffice memos, circulated by executive Allene Roberts and labeled "sensitive," describe how Philip Monis planned to spend nearly $600,000 on campaign contributions, junkets, honoraria (aka speaking fees), donations to pet charitable causes and other strategies to influence legislators in seven states in 1989.

The language is bracingly frank. One memo, titled "Defensive and Offensive Strategies/Review of Tools to Accomplish Strategies," includes these thoughts from Roberts: * "Contract lobbyist and I intend to institute a program ... [that] will involve informal meetings with [Arizona] legislator participation secured by the payment of an honoraria." * "Charitable contributions: Contract lobbyist is in the process of identifying key [Arizona] members' pet projects." * "Last year, we gave out about $11,000 to Kansas legislators. It may not sound like much, but that's the most we could give without sticking out like a sore thumb." * "We already help sponsor a [Louisiana] legislative dove hunt, but I think our own fishing trip would be of benefit. We give these members so much money in campaign contributions and I think that knocks out the need for an honorarium unless they requested it coupled as a trip." * "This [Missouri] group really loves to hunt. The same guys I took to the racetrack in [Oklahoma] and hunting last year were the very ones that helped us hold the leadership firm on no cigarette taxes. We will be doing some racetrack trips in 1990." * "In [Oklahoma], the industry lobby team is absolutely superb and seems to be able to hold leadership to coming out in the press against a cigarette tax every time the governor brings it up, which is often. All the lobbyists were former members and just do a great job." * "We will continue to give political contributions which really is the only thing going in New Mexico. Our Speaker Ray Sanchez always seems to hang tough with us. He had a great opportunity to sell us out last year and didn't do it." * "We will continue to cater to the [Texas] Speaker and his pet projects, as well as to the five or six committee chairs that have and will help us.... Where profitable, we will also give to Republican House races because those types are more likely to be |no new taxes' candidates.... [I]f the current media flap over legislators' trips dissolves, we are planning on taking four trips to NYC with honoraria involved." * "Organizations of elected officials: We always give to the various caucuses and this type of contribution does buy political clout." * "Our new [Texas] comptroller - the person to whom the governor and legislators look for the state's financial guidance - will be John Sharp. The plan is to give early and large campaign contributions to Sharp, thereby jumping on the bandwagon early and at the very least buying Sharp's silence when it comes to locating new revenues."

Sharp's spokesperson, Andy Welch, says his boss in fact received a total of $8,500 in Philip Morris PAC money in 1989 and 1990. But instead of remaining silent, Sharp last year proposed eliminating the discount granted to vendors that pay their beer and cigarette excise taxes early, a move opposed by the tobacco lobby. It's "absurd" to think that Sharp could be bought, Welch says.

Roberts, the memo's author, did not return calls.

FOLLOWUPS

Two Virginia construction contractors, Mildred Tucker and Kirk Voorhees, received $1,000 checks from Sen. Arlen Specter Is (R-Pa.) reelection campaign after they told Common Cause Magazine they had been coerced into contributing to him (see "All Aboard," April/May/June 1992).

In 1987 Tucker and Voorhees were subcontractors on die restoration of Washington's historic Union Station. They said the prime contractor, the Pittsburgh-based Dick Corp., made them attend a $1,000-a-plate dinner for Specter. Voorhees described it as "coercion and intimidation."

In a carefully couched letter accompanying the checks, Howard Creskoff, assistant treasurer for the Specter campaign, apologized for "apparent overzealousness on the part of one of our supporters."

President Bush signed sweeping legislation aimed at reducing the exposure of pregnant women and young children to crumbling lead paint, which has been linked to reduced IQs and other neurological problems (see "Heavy Metal," Fall 1992).

The new law gives home buyers the right to have pre-1978 houses inspected for lead paint, and it calls on EPA and OSHA to move forward several lead-poisoning prevention programs. Contained in this year's comprehensive housing bill, the lead provisions represent "the most significant step forward in 22 years," according to the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning.

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