Fitzsimon File

Here is a familiar storyline in the General Assembly—a lobbyist tries to blackmail state lawmakers with threats that a corporate client will leave the state, or at least layoff workers, unless lawmakers vote the corporation’s way on an issue.

Many times the lobbyists hired will be insiders with close connections to legislative leaders, maybe both the Democrats and Republicans.

The News Observer detailed the last episode of this troubling scenario Thursday morning in a story about the efforts of JR Tobacco to prevent the General Assembly from increasing the state’s cigarette tax.

The devastating public health effects of cigarettes are well known by now, the $2 billion a year the state spends on smoking related illnesses, the 24,000 teenagers that will start smoking in North Carolina this year. The effects of raising the state’s absurdly low cigarette tax are well established. It will stop many teenagers from smoking, which means fewer adult addicts and fewer people dying prematurely.

But JR Tobacco isn’t too concerned with any of that. The company operates tobacco outlets on three of North Carolina’s interstates and says it sells $20 million worth of cigarettes every year. Company officials say a higher tax will mean far fewer people will buy cigarettes from the outlets and that means fewer people shopping at other stores in outlet malls and strip shopping centers. That means less money spent in North Carolina and a loss of jobs.

In other words, don’t raise this tax even though it will save lives and save the state millions in health care costs in the long run, because it might make it harder for some outlet stores to stay in business and would definitely hurt the profit margin of JR Tobacco.

But it’s not just company officials making the pitch. JR Tobacco has hired two lobbyists to convince legislators that the state can’t afford to raise the cigarette tax. One of the lobbyists is Meredith Norris, a former staff member for House Speaker Jim Black and a member of his 2004 campaign staff.

The other lobbyist is Lew Starling, who coincidentally happens to be the law partner of Rep. Leo Daughtry, a leader of one faction of House Republicans.

A spokesperson for Black says Norris will be treated like any other lobbyists. Treated like another lobbyists? Didn’t she mean treated like any of his former staff members and key campaign workers? I guess that means Rep. Daughtry will treat Starling like any other law partner.

Conventional wisdom is that lawmakers are likely to pass some increase in the tobacco tax this year. The federal tobacco buyout makes the protests of tobacco farmers much less likely, and talking about the public health risks from tobacco products is no longer considered politically risky.

That leaves mostly just the insider game and the economic threat strategy for JR Tobacco and other companies to play, relying on lobbyists with close connections to powerful legislators, and gloom and doom predictions of economic ruin.

There’s a simpler way to sum it up. Greed versus public health.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.