A Must Read Article
A great article on the current state of beer laws in Texas.
To paraphrase JFK, "Ask not what Texas' craft brewers can do for you and what you can do for Texas' craft brewers." Contact your State Representative today! I did.
Labels: Beer Politics
posted by hiikeeba at 06:01
9 Comments:
You sure on that link?
Now I am.
I'm telling you, you should write on my post a while back. I tracked some of the money from one PAC only. It's a good starting place for a much more in depth article than this one.
Cr4aft brewers went about lobbying in the wrong way last session. I hope they wake up and start fighting fire with fire. St. A's makes enough money to start lobbying directly.
Saint Arnold may make enough money to lobby directly, but they can really only lobby their Legislator. But there are more distributors who lobby that pay more money than Saint Arnold could ever dream of earning.
Not true, they can lobby any and every legislator. A person can lobby his own legislator (generally) without a lobbying permit. It's when you lobby the rest that you need the permit, or to pay a lobbyist who has one.
And sure, the big boys are bigger, but if you don't at least try to compete, you never will. It definitely beats going about it the wrong way, which is what they've done so far.
Sure they can lobby every legislator. But if they lobby someone for whose district they don't create jobs, they will be drowned out by the folks who do create the jobs in the district. That's why it's not as effective to lobby the El Paso rep as it is your home rep.
On to the economics of scale: Each county has at least two distributors. Each district has 5, let's say for argument sake, counties. The wholesalers lobby contributes a thousand bucks for each candidate running for office in that district--let's just say, it might be less--in each party. There are 159 Legislators that the wholesalers lobby contributes money to, wines and dines, buys gifts for, etc. Saint Arnold can't afford to spend the kind of money wholesalers can spend.
And just as an example of how much wholesalers think they might lose, Remember the drug lord's opulent mansion in 2008's "Traffic"? It is actually owned by Dallas Miller distributor Barry Andrews and his wife Lana. That's right, they make drug dealer kind of money.
That's why it's not as effective to lobby the El Paso rep as it is your home rep.
Unless he's on the right committee, or enough people owe him a vote... There are any number of reasons to lobby elsewhere. Anyway, we're both saying the same thing--it would be an uphill battle. But I like to tilt at windmills.
Also, John McCain's wife is a gazillionaire because she inherited a distributor. That's why he can't remember how many houses he has, they have loads of money.
But if it comes down to a floor vote, the El Paso rep will vote as the wholesalers pays him to. The wholesalers lobby the entire legislature, not just the committee members. Again, Saint Arnold doesn't make enough money to buy all the votes on the committee, the wholesalers do, because there are so many of them.
Yeah, we are saying something similar. I enjoy the tilting, too, but would like to see things work out my way once in a while.
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