OT: Proposed Tobacco Tax

[Guest guest]

The last time a tobacco tax was proposed the Oregon Republicans rejected the

concept. The Democrates sent the issue to the public for a vote.

The following article points out a possible reason why the Republicans were

pro-tobacco.

DeSiena

House Republicans are bought and paid for by Big Tobacco

By Kari Chisholm

On Tuesday, PolitickerOR reported that the Oregon House Republicans had accepted

a $100,000 check from tobacco giant Reynolds American -- the parent company of

R.J. Reynolds, and the maker of Camel brand cigarettes and dozens of others.

As the House Democrats noted, it was a payoff to the GOP for being good allies

in the 2007 session:

“Last session, House Democrats passed legislation to ban smoking in bars and

restaurants. And we asked voters to raise the price of cigarettes to pay for

health insurance for children. That issue went to the ballot only because House

Republicans refused to increase tobacco prices during the session. Now, House

Republicans are getting paid back for doing the bidding of big tobacco with this

$100,000 contribution,†said Michele Rossolo, executive director of FuturePAC.

“Future Pac has refused to accept any donations from Reynolds or any other

tobacco company.â€

Because I'm a data nerd, I hustled myself on over to ORESTAR and did a little

research of my own. Aside from the big $100,000 check - how many other House

Republicans (and Democrats) took checks from Big Tobacco?

It turns out that there are basically two tobacco companies that play in Oregon

politics - Reynolds and Philip . And their donations go almost exclusively

to House Republicans.

In addition to the big $100,000 check, the Oregon House Republicans caucus took

another $20,378 and their individual members took another $49,000 -- for a total

of $169,378.

The Democrats? The caucus, FuturePAC, took zero -- and two members took $4000

total.

That's right. The House Republicans took 42 times as much Big Tobacco money as

the House Democrats.

Here's the totals, just for this election cycle. First, the Republicans:

$120,378 Promote Oregon Leadership PAC (House GOP)

$7,500 Bruce Hanna

$6,500 Huffman

$6,000 Nelsen

$4,000 Gene Whisnant

$3,500 Vic Gilliam

$3,000 Bill Garrard

$3,000 Cameron

$2,500 Bill Kennemer

$1,000 Andy Duyck

$1,000 Sal Esquivel

$1,000 Bob Jenson

$1,000 Greg

$1,000

$1,000 Gilman

$1,000 Lim

$1,000 Phyllis Thiemann

$1,000 Kim Thatcher

$1,000 Wayne Krieger

$500 Jim

$500 Jim Weidner

$500 Ron Maurer

$500

$500 Tim Freeman

$500 Dennis

And the Democrats:

$2,500 Dave Hunt

$1,500 Mike Schaufler