In a bid to win support for sweeping tobacco legislation, the major cigarette producers have showered lawmakers with record campaign contributions, even as some old allies are swearing off tobacco money.
Tobacco interests pumped $4.5 million into the coffers of federal candidates and national political parties in 1997, an industry record for a non-election year.
An analysis done for The New York Times by the Campaign Study Group, a research company in Springfield, Va., shows that the industry began stepping up its contributions in 1995 and 1996, with accelerated donations continuing into last year, the most recent for which federal election records are available.
In those years, more than $14 million flowed to the Democratic and Republican National committees, other party committees and the campaign treasuries of candidates who were seeking federal office. The industry also spent more than $58 million on lobbying over the last two years.
Despite the industry’s increased largess and lobbying, prospects for its most important legislative goal, congressional enactment of the $368.5 billion tobacco settlement reached last year, are extremely cloudy, and the industry’s public image and political position have never been more precarious.
Cigarette makers in the settlement would be shielded from some future suits filed by smokers seeking damages for tobacco-related illnesses.
Some top recipients of contributions over the last seven years have joined a chorus of industry critics. Other former allies have recently decided to stop taking tobacco money altogether because they view the contributions as tainted.
Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr.(R-Va.), who is chairman of the House Commerce Committee, has been the top recipient, with $159,416 in contributions from tobacco political action committees and individuals affiliated with the industry since 1991.
But Bliley has lately been a thorn in tobacco’s side, issuing subpoenas for sensitive industry documents and chastising executives during their testimony over marketing to teenagers.
Meanwhile, a number of leading lawmakers who gratefully accepted the industry’s cash have sworn off tobacco money. Among them is House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), who has received the second heaviest support from the tobacco industry, with $130,598 contributed to his campaigns and an affiliated political action committee since 1991. He stopped taking tobacco donations last year.
Tobacco interests contributed to congressional campaigns $131,613 more last year than in 1995, the most recent non-election year. The sum is more than double the total that tobacco companies and individuals affiliated with the industry gave in 1993.
