Money, influence, prestige and name recognition aren’t the only qualities that are detrimentally influential to finding success in the political world. If you ask the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, they’ll tell you that alcohol is just as important!
That was the theme of Tuesday night’s panel “Free beer: Liberating libations from ‘Bootleggers and Baptists’,” which is part of the AEI’s “Culture of Competition Series” panel.
While the open bar helped entice people to attend, the forum had a serious purpose – setting alcohol free from restrictive government regulations.
“Alcohol, competition, regulation and how it all goes together,” Washington Examiner columnist and AEI fellow Timothy Carney said at the beginning of the event. “The pursuit of regulation is often done in the tune of the public good.”
The alcohol industry. has long been one of the biggest contributors to political campaigns. Nestled among the top 20 federal campaign contributors are major beer and wine distributors.
“That’s more than all of the other 18 companies combined,” Brandon Arnold of the National Taxpayers Union pointed out.
In fact, the top two contributors are the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, contributing a total of $3.5 million and $1.4 million respectively during the 2012 election cycle. Also making the top 20 were Anheuser-Busch, Southern Wine & Spirits and Puma Springs Vineyard.
No wonder it was so easy for “Bootleggers and Baptists” to buy off politicians to enforce dry counties during the days of prohibition!
States, too, may have a direct impact on the distribution and regulations of alcohol. Jacob Grier, a bartender and blogger, talked about how alcohol infiltrating state politics. He discussed how alcohol regulations consumed Washington state politics in 2010 when Costco, the second largest retailer in the U.S., faced off with distributors to ban state-run liquor stores so they could sell spirits in their stores.
But instead of merely filing a lawsuit against the state, the Washington-state based retailer successfully sponsored Initiative 1183, which kicked the state out of the alcohol business.
“Privatization does not equal competition,” Grier explained.
Several other states are also debating privatization legislation this year.
In Pennsylvania, where all alcohol sales are administered by the state, the State House passed a privatization bill in March. While the state’s Republican governor, Tom Corbett, fully supports the legislation, it is facing some difficulty passing the Republican-controlled State Senate.
Tennessee, which already allows the sale of alcohol at private stores, is also pushing for the ability to sell wine in grocery stores. Tennesseans behind the “Red White and Food” campaign are hoping that just as wine gets better with age, so will their ability to push new legislation that would allow retailers to shelf their drink of choice.
