IN A MOVE THAT WILL SURPRISE absolutely nobody, State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) voted in committee last week against a proposal to tack a tax on cigarettes to raise about $1.2 billion annually for the state's ailing general fund.
He also recently voted against two measures, SB 602 and SB 603, which would make it harder for minors to buy cigarettes.The senator joined two other Republicans in voting no on SB 600, despite the fact that polls, such as one conducted after the May vote and another done in April by Field Research Inc. say an overwhelming majority of state residents favor an increase in tobacco taxes and don't want to see drastic cuts to health-care programs for low-income and disabled residents and children.
In the last 10 years, tobacco companies have spent millions in California to keep taxes on tobacco products here among the lowest in the nation. Strickland alone has been the recipient of a whopping $91,550 in tobacco contributions since he entered politics.
According to tobacco-facts.net, California's tobacco tax rate of 87 cents per pack is 32nd in the nation. Rhode Island is No. 1 with $3.46 a pack. Some city governments in other areas of the U.S. have imposed their own taxes as well.
The bill, co authored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) has earmarked the revenue to go toward the general fund, lung cancer research, tobacco cessation and control, school-based anti-smoking programs and tobacco enforcement efforts. SB 600 is sponsored by the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association.
Besides generating much-needed revenue, the bill is expected to discourage smoking among youth, according to a press release issued by Padilla.
"California needs to do more to keep tobacco away from kids," Padilla said. "With every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, youth smoking is reduced by about seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by about four percent. Raising the tobacco tax reduces youth smoking," he added.
The bill's co-sponsor, the American Cancer Society, argues that the increase is long overdue and since California's last tobacco tax increase, 44 states have increased their tobacco taxes. The American Heart Association, also a co-sponsor, argues that this bill will help reduce heart disease, which is the No. 1 killer in the United States.
Assemblymember Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) has introduced a similar bill, AB 89.
STRICKLAND HAS A LONG HISTORY of siding with Big Tobacco on legislation, especially when it comes to sales of tobacco products to minors. Beyond the recent votes against bills to curb youth smoking, while in the Assembly he voted against allowing the Department of Health Services to conduct stings on businesses selling tobacco to minors. It passed into law anyway. He also voted against restricting non face-to-face sales of cigarettes. The measure was signed into law by Schwarzenegger.
In May, he voted against SB 4 which prohibits smoking on any state coastal beach or state park unit, except in adjacent parking lots.
The Ventura County Republican Party has been well funded by tobacco dollars as well, with $50,000 deposited into its account in May of 2008 by Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris.
Other county tobacco donations include $28,650 for Assembly member Audra Strickland (R-Moorpark), $20,900 for Assembly member Cameron Smyth (R-Santa Clarita), and $18,900 for Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster). None of the current Democratic legislators have accepted tobacco money.
Watch to see how all these politicians vote when the bills come before them.
SB 600 is opposed by California Chamber of Commerce, California Black Chamber of Commerce, the Black Chamber of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the California Taxpayers Assn. and the Neighborhood Market Assn. All these groups have received tobacco contributions, according to tobacco-facts.net.
Of the two senators who sided with Strickland in the Senate Health Committee, both have also accepted tobacco money. Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) accepted $26,800 and Sen. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley) took $10,100.
UPDATE: Today Tony Strickland finally added his name to the list of senators willing to take a pay cut. For a look at the list, go here. IN MORE INTERESTING NEWS: It looks like State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), who represents the cities of Fillmore, Santa Paula and Piru, has gotten himself into a bit of hot water. Read the story in the Sacramento Bee here.
LOL. Classic Strickland siding with his big money donors.
I don't understand what the big deal is here. Strickland ran with a promise against raising any and all taxes and now he is voting against a tax.
Is it his fault voters elected someone pledged to not compromise? It would in some ways be irresponsible to go against his platform.
His goal was to make government smaller and to vote against every tax increase. So far he has kept true to that promise.
What's new? Phony Tony sides with big tobacco again, despite an *overwhelming majority* of voters being in favor of tobacco tax increases, and a state budget in shambles.
Phony Tony would rather throw children off of healthcare, fire teachers, sell off our state parks to private industry, and increase the tax burden of the middle class, than tax tobacco or oil extraction or multimillionaires.
That he's rockstar in the Republican Party speaks volumes about Republicans, and is one of the reasons Republicans are so insanely unpopular in this state.
Only 3 1/2 short years until Mr. "I won by only 800 votes but govern as an extremist wingnut whacko" gets booted from office.
Stop taxing tobacco. It's become abusive. The majority of fat people are hypocrites for taxing smokers.
Why not have a fat tax. Tax people based on how much they weigh? Obesity is greatly affecting children. Obesity is a much larger problem than smoking.
I believe obesity costs the taxpayers more than smoking. Obesity causes diabetis, cancer, liver and kidney disease, high blood pressure, strokes, back and knee problems just to name a few.
No Lars he ran as an "Independent Thinker," remember?
Flashback,
He signed a pledge to vote against ALL tax increases. The headline for this story should be local politician keeps his promises.
If voters wanted higher taxes they had a different candidate to choose.
All of you have some great arguments but when it comes down to it he signed a pledge and he is keeping his commitment.
That's true he did keep his promise to cancer peddlers at the expense of small children, the aged, disabled and the poor.
He signed a pledge to not raise any taxes. How complicated is that to all of you? He didn't hide his pledge from voters that he signed a pledge to not raise any taxes for any reason.
If you want to call people names why not start with the voters that elected him?
Did he also sign a pledge to make sure minors had access to tobacco? He voted against measures making it harder for kids to buy cigarettes.
Marie,
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this legislation. I feel that in the era of cut backs to newsrooms and editorial writers there isn't enough follow through to hold politicians accountable. I appreciate your hard work.
Thanks,
A fan
Thank you Lars for reminding us that Grover Norquist owns Tony Strickland lock, stock and barrel come hell or high water. It's great to know that Tony will screw over his constituents to make sure he keeps his pledge to "shrink government to where I can drown it in the bathub" Grover Norquist.
Need I remind you that less than half of all those who voted No on 1A want an all-cuts budget, and believe that some tax increases are necessary?
The "no new taxes, ever" crowd are an extremist, rump small minority. Even your sainted Ronald Reagan raised taxes to balance budgets. If Ronald Reagan were alive today, you'd call him a RINO. Extremist crazies every last one of you.
Marie - two questions.
1. Any news on which senators took the pay cut?
2. Are you going to write a column on the corporate tax bailouts and who supported them?
David Atkins,
Those who campaigned against 1A from the liberal side undercut their leadership, gave a victory to the other side, split a coalition which ensured everything failed to pass and guaranteed the cuts would be more devastating then they would have been if they passed.
The growing independent vote leans libertarian = smaller government. They, by poll, are willing to accept fewer services in order to lower taxes. This is the swing vote. The Democrats stand a chance of losing numbers and elections if they do not demonstrate a willingness to cut low priority services or renegotiate expensive contracts.
We can't pay for everything we want, and especially now, we and the legislators need to better prioritize our wish list.
While clearly the cigarette industry is trying to influence our government by donating large amounts to friendly legislators, the "no tax" argument, while pushed by the right, has real appeal to the middle. They want to see some discipline.
And I think Democratic voters feel a little ill seeing these cuts to education and children's health insurance while corporations get huge tax breaks via a budget passed in the middle of the night under duress. Did you read Timm's story today?
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jun/21/corporate-tax-breaks-in-dire-time-draw-flak/
The legislature has doled out more than $100 billion in special-interest tax breaks since 1983. Some of these were identified by the Legislative Analyst's Office as no longer serving a useful purpose.
Leslie, how do you feel about public financing of campaigns? I brought it up in an earlier blog. In a year we will be voting on a ballot proposition which is a test pilot for public financing of campaigns. You will start hearing more about it soon. http://www.caclean.org/progress/cfea_details.php
I think all our legislators would be more willing to do the right thing if they did not have to worry as much about chasing special-interest dollars every time they ran for office. I believe the source of this money directly influences many policy decisions.
Nearly $100,000 in tobacco money has without a doubt influenced Tony Strickland. Setting the tax issue aside, what was his reasoning behind voting against all those measures to keep cigarettes away from minors?
Let the parents keep cigarettes away from minors. Do we really need Phony Tony to "protect" our kids? Garbage. Phony Tony is a pay to play politicians and sells out to the highest bidder, but we don't need Strickland to keep cigs away from our kids. Those that want higher and higher taxes for their pet projects don't care where the taxes come form; just more and more taxes. About the only thing right that Strickland ever does is when he votes against more taxes. This one right doesn't change his spots; he is still a poor excuse for the peoples' representative.
Hey Katie,
I dug up what you wanted.
Senators who took a pay cut:
John Benoit 5%
Ron Calderon 5%
Dave Cogdill 5%
Ellen Corbett 5%
Lou Correa 10%
Dave Cox 5%
Jeff Denham 5%
Denise Ducheny 5%
Dean Florez 5%
Loni Hancock 5%
Bob Huff 5%
Christine Kehoe 5%
Mark Leno 5%
Carol Liu 5%
Alen Lowenthal 18%
Abel Maldonado 18%
Gloria Negrete 5%
Jenny Oropeza 5%
Alex Padilla 5%
Fran Pavley 5%
Gloria Romero 5%
George Runner 5%
Joe Simitian 5%
Darell Steinberg 5%
Patricia Wiggins 5%
Lois Wolk 5%
Leland Yee 5%
As far as the corporate tax cuts go, since supporters were not listed on a bill, it's hard to say. I'll let Timm dig that one out. There were a lot of things thrown into the mix to get the budget passed in February.
Re: student.
No one questions the huge financial cost of having such a large obese population, but why wouldn't you support making it harder for minors to get cigarettes? Eradicating both are not mutually exclusive. We don't want people to die from obesity or smoking. If you have the chance to change one of them, why wouldn't you? (Unless you're getting campaign contributions from tobacco companies, of course). I'd like to see Tony look into the eyes of Tony, Jr. and Ruby and tell them he's committed to making it easier for them to smoke, and that his contributions are worth more than their healthy future.
So our "independent thinker or leader or whatever he is" Strickland didn't take a paycut? Why am I not suprised?
Moderate,
Until the "leadership" actually leads, I don't feel too bad about undercutting it.
Republicans are holding this hostage, despite being a rump minority. I'm not about making long-term structural concessions to their insanity, just to try to mitigate a few cuts this year.
The focus needs to be on constitutional reform. The state is broken, and the blame for that needs to fall squarely on Republicans where it belongs, not on Democrats making terrible "bipartisan" compromises that give the GOP essentially everything they want.
David Atkins,
If that is true then why don't you support new leaders in the state senate and state assembly? The Republicans were upset by their leaders so they removed them. The Democrats were upset but undermined them while keeping them in place.
The Republicans were upset because their leaders compromised and tried to work out a bipartisan plan.
The Democrats have been doing this all along.
I bet that California politicians"Audra StricklandCameron Smyth (R-Santa Clarita), Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) are doing a collective "DOH!" for selling out so cheap on the $$ tobacco DOUGH!
Tony clearly sees there's a bonanza to assist in sales of carcinogenic substances to addicted smokers!
Not surprising really...well, in a few years he'll get termed out and since he's unelectable Statewide he'll pull a "McClintock" shop around for another district where he has a chance and won't be a source of shame to us all any longer.
Moderate,
We're trying to get some more forceful leadership. To the leadership's credit, though, the problem is that the leadership is trying to govern, while the GOP is trying to blow up the state.
Contrary to the "bipartisan" "wisdom" of "very serious people", what the state needs is Democratic leaders less focused on governance, and more focused on doing the *political* work to make the state governable.
RE: Recent Update
Show some modicum of shame and take a paycut TS!!!
Marie, wasn't it a School Trustee that got the VCRC tobacco money? Refresh my memory on this. I'm pretty sure it was someone who was supposed to be taking care of kids, not killing them.
Read the Runner article. "Jessica's Law" was headed up by his wife. The campaign law is different on initiatives and I can only imagine where it went.
"...The donation was solicited by county Chairman Mike Osborn and committee member Dean Kunicki..." according to the article about the donation. Kunicki is on the County School Board.
But you knew this, Katie.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jun/08/tobacco-firm-funds-county-gop-50000-from-altria/
I hope people in his district remember if he thinks about running for re-election. Between the tobacco money, the $100,000's wasted on lobbysts and goodness know what else, the County School Board needs to be cleaned up.
The Stricklands always will vote for the tobacco companies or they wouldn't be in office. Tony Strickland obviously cares nothing for children, adults, or the environment. Audra, on the otherhand is great at napkin folding and should open a business to teach napkin folding to her constituents. She has never sponsored anything, he is a nay sayer in the shadow of cigarettes and any big money he can find. If the people in their districts had any brains at all they would toss those two out with the rest of their garbage.