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OCR Page 1 of 27Bruce
Reed
The White House
Public
Tobacco- Regubs.
Citizen
Still Waiting to Exhale
"Do Nothing" Republican Leaders Do
Their Thing for Big Tobacco Contributors
The House Republican leadership in the U.S. Congress told the public to hold its breath and wait for
a Republican tobacco bill to address the nation's number one health problem. Republican leaders
promised to introduce their bill before adjourning for the August recess. We're still waiting.
Instead, they decided to ignore the problem and allow tobacco companies to escape accountability.
The House recessed for the month of August without doing anything, and it is likely lawmakers will
continue to try to protect the tobacco industry when they return in September.
The Republican leadership did just what Big Tobacco wants them to do about the hundreds of
thousands of Americans who die each year from tobacco-caused illnesses, about the millions of
children and teenagers addicted to tobacco products, and about the billions of dollars taxpayers spend
subsidizing tobacco-related health care costs. Big Tobacco wants the House to do nothing to address
these problems and the House Republican leadership did what Big Tobacco wants.
Based on their "principles" announced in June, it was clear the Republican Task Force working to
come up with an alternative to the bi-partisan Hansen-Meehan-Waxman bill (H.R. 3868) was not
even considering holding the tobacco industry accountable for the decades of death caused by
tobacco products, for marketing to children, for covering up health studies. The Task Forces'
principles were actually a step backward from present law in key areas, such as FDA authority to
regulate tobacco products. Yet, the Republican leadership could not even agree to anything,
probably out of fear that the strong support for H.R. 3868 could lead to its passage if both bills were
brought to the floor.
Why did the Republicans decide to do nothing?
Tobacco PAC and Soft Money
Look at the campaign contributions. Current
members of the U.S. House Republican
(1997-1998 Cycle)
leadership continue to lead the way in collecting
huge amounts in tobacco industry PAC
contributions for their 1998 re-election
campaigns. Big Tobacco continues to pour
unregulated "soft money" into the coffers of the
national political parties. So far in this election
cycle (1997/1998), U.S. House incumbents have
20%
benefitted from more than $4.75 million in
PAC and soft money contributions.
Republicans received more than $3,810,000
(80%) while Democrats received $972,000
(20%).
Republicans
Democrats
Public Citizen's Congress Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20003 (202) 546-4996 Fax: (202) 547-7392 www.citizen.org/congress
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