Rep. Ron DeSantis’ decisive victory in last week’s Florida Republican gubernatorial primary over Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam was cheered by Trumpite Republicans, but others might think the conservative stalwart’s appeal is narrow. The reality is quite different. Libertarians and even progressives should also be whooping and hollering over DeSantis’ nomination for one key reason: the GOP candidate’s willingness to take on Big Sugar.
Government supports for the sugar industry are among the worst policies in the country today. The sugar industry in Florida has rightly been blamed for feeding pollutants that stimulate algal blooms in Lake Okeechobee and Florida watersheds into the state’s water system, potentially giving rise to a situation that will cost taxpayers a great deal to address simply because of irresponsible behavior on Big Sugar’s part.
The industry is also being fairly trashed for the attendant effect of this algae on Florida’s tourism industry. Less tax money is flowing thanks to Big Sugar, just when the state faces potentially steep costs to address the problem. And it was only made possible by Big Sugar’s outsized political influence and lavish spending.
Sugar farmers are required simply to follow “best management practices” with regard to chemical flows into Florida’s water—a standard that Putnam has done nothing to enforce. Not surprisingly, Putnam has also been fingered as a participant in free hunting trips bankrolled by Big Sugar – trips that seem to have aided the delivery of this policy outcome.
All this has occurred within Florida while federal supports for the sugar industry, which benefits from favorable-term loans, import quotas and limits on sales, continue to distort the market and hurt American consumers.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “in 2015 raw sugar in the U.S. ran 24.7 cents a pound, an 84 percent premium over the global price.” That’s because the government itself will pay that inflated price for the sugar if consumers won’t. The U.S. sugar program, in its totality, looks like corporate welfare for the handful of people dominate the industry.
The fact is, Big Sugar is Big Business. Congress and Florida politicians have kept it that way through deliberate policy choices – except for DeSantis, who ran against Big Sugar and won his first battle, if not the war, last Tuesday. That’s what makes his candidacy so exciting.
DeSantis made Putnam’s support from the sugar industry a focal point of his campaign. During the last debate, DeSantis attacked Putnam for failing to “stand up to” big money interests, by which he meant Big Sugar. As of the beginning of August, Putnam’s campaign had taken in $804,000 directly from the sugar industry, while it got another $7.6 million from Big Sugar-backed PACs. Putnam had defended the sugar industry from attacks over its impact on Florida’s waters, and its contribution to the wave of vile green slime and red tide.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has taken a firmly anti-Big Sugar stance in Congress — not on an environmental basis per se, but out of opposition to corporate welfare. Earlier this year, in the context of debate over the Farm Bill, the House shot down an effort to reform the sugar program. DeSantis was one of three Florida congressmen who supported reform—a pretty bold stance for a guy who wanted to be governor of turf that Big Sugar sees as its very own.
A sugar-connected 501(c)(4) issue advocacy group tried to make sure DeSantis felt pain for his not-so-sugar-sweet stances, dropping a whopping $700,000 in ads against DeSantis going as far back as April. It didn’t work. And greens and libertarians, who frequently find themselves at odds with “Trumpite” candidates like DeSantis, should be glad he bested Putnam on the night.
DeSantis showed guts in his primary, going so far as to call for fully funding and expediting a reservoir to address the water contamination issue. Will he be the only candidate standing up to Big Sugar, or will his surprise Democratic opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, join him in his quest to stop the industry handouts and the defilement of the Everglades?
Gillum’s campaign has been mum on Big Sugar, and had no answers for me when I reached out. But in a Democratic debate, he did go out of his way to highlight that less well-off farmers around Lake Okeechobee could be adversely affected by new environmental regulations or limits on farming. He called for a “New Deal” for such individuals.
That might mean Gillum is positioning himself as the candidate less hostile to Big Sugar than DeSantis. Or it might mean Gillum expects those farmers to need the help, in which case he might also be taking a stance against Big Sugar.
If it’s the former, Gillum can expect to be richly rewarded with Big Sugar’s campaign support. But if it’s the latter, Florida voters did have ensured that the state’s next governor will not be a champion of the anti-free-market, regressive and environmentally damaging policies that have long benefited a very special moneyed interest.
Americans inside and outside of Florida should hope for that result. We may not agree on much these days, but we should be capable of agreeing that Big Sugar doesn’t need the helping hand of government in 2018.
Liz Mair is the owner, founder and president of Mair Strategies LLC and strategist for the Swamp Accountability Project.
