Kurita: Tobacco using anti-tax strategy
By John Rodgers, jrodgers@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 26, 2006

A state Senator backing a large cigarette tax increase says tobacco companies are using a unique way to lobby against her initiative.

Sen. Rosalind Kurita (D-Clarksville) is sponsoring a bill to raise the state’s cigarette tax by approximately 71 cents from the current 20-cent tax levied per pack. If the bill becomes law, Tennessee smokers would pay a tax of about 91 cents per pack.

Kurita says the proposal is designed to discourage people, especially young adults, from starting smoking or continuing the habit.

And, according to the senator, polls show support for it in the state.

Kurita said that support is prompting tobacco companies to use constituents, usually smokers, to lobby lawmakers to oppose the bill. It is a strategy Kurita hasn’t seen during her 10 years as a senator.

“They really have made an effort to undercut it,” Kurita said.

Tobacco industry lobbyists deny that the companies they represent are making those calls to constituents.

Kurita said the pattern begins with a simple call to a person whom, she speculates, the tobacco industry knows is a smoker.

The caller, which could be automated, informs the person of Kurita’s cigarette tax increase bill and asks if he or she is against it.

If they answer yes, Kurita said the individual is put on hold and then is directly connected to a lawmaker’s office, sometimes Kurita’s, to urge the respective legislator to oppose the bill.

Those contacted are literally part of a three-way call involving the tobacco company, the individual and the respective lawmaker’s office, Kurita said.

The calls have been coming into Kurita’s office for the past three weeks, said Pam George, Kurita’s assistant, and number “quite a few.”

George said many times callers don’t know what they are specifically calling about and don’t know how they got connected to Kurita’s office.

“We can’t figure it out,” George said, adding that the calls come from a different area within the state each day.

Kurita’s cigarette tax increase is estimated to boost state coffers by $354 million each year, and the bill allows the money to go to health care, which she prefers. Currently, state tobacco tax money is earmarked for K-12 education.

“We know that as we raise the cost of cigarettes, the first group of folks who don’t smoke, the ones who really respond to that, are young kids who are not addicted yet,” Kurita said. “Now, once you get addicted to cigarettes, that’s a different story.”

Despite Kurita saying her bill polls well with the public, it has not moved far in the Legislature. Currently, the cigarette tax increase is mired in the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee and has not yet been put up for a vote.

Kurita said the delay in the vote is giving tobacco companies time to “undercut me.”

“They are working feverously now while the bill has not yet been voted on,” she added.

In the House, the bill was scheduled to be heard earlier this month in the House Agriculture Committee, which is a panel notoriously friendly to tobacco interests. But that committee is closed for the remainder of the session, meaning House sponsors would have to jump through some parliamentary hoops to keep the bill alive.

“Nothing’s over until it’s over,” Kurita said.

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