Soda tax fight now in voters’ hands
Rival groups spent over $3M on campaigns for, against proposal to fund pre-K
Political action committees on opposite sides of a proposed Santa Fe tax on sugary drinks continued their flurry of spending to sway voters in the heated final push before Tuesday’s special election, campaign finance statements filed Monday show.
Two groups each spent a little more than a quarter-million dollars from April 25 through Sunday. Overall, the organizations have poured more than $3.12 million in cash and in-kind contributions into the battle for ballots, highlighting the role Santa Fe’s election is playing in the debate over so-called “soda tax” proposals around the country.
Fueling the spending blitz are New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who also has spent heavily in favor of such initiatives in other cities, and a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, the American Beverage Association, which seeks to stem such tax proposals.
Pre-K for Santa Fe, the political committee campaigning in favor of Mayor Javier Gonzales’ proposed 2-cents-perounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, ended the latest reporting period more than $140,000 in the red, partly the result of a $234,000 “media buy” through a Washington, D.C., firm that is “not yet paid.”
Campaign manager Sandra Wechsler said the group has commitments from donors to pay off the debt.
“We are complying with the city clerk’s instructions to report expenditures when they are invoiced, rather than when we pay the invoice,” she said in a statement, adding that she hopes the opposing group, Better Way for Santa Fe & Pre-K, is following the same practice.
“It would truly be a disservice to voters if Better Way were hiding expenses after they were invoiced,” she said.
David Huynh, a spokesman for the anti-tax group, said the campaign has been working closely with the city clerk and City Attorney’s Office to ensure it is abiding by Santa Fe’s campaign finance laws.
“We are confident that our report
complies with city laws,” he said. “This is a sad attempt by the pro-tax PAC to distract the public from the fact that this massive beverage tax will have a devastating impact on working families and small businesses. The real question is who is behind the dark money that is funding their misleading and bankrupt campaign.”
If voters approve the tax, the mayor says the city would use the revenue to help fund preschool programs in Santa Fe. Attempts by some members of the state Legislature to expand early childhood education by using part of New Mexico’s $15 billion land grant endowment have failed, prompting Gonzales to propose the municipal tax.
The campaign has been bitter. Proponents of the tax have said they are part of a morally correct movement to expand access to early childhood education and discourage unhealthy consumption of sugary drinks. Opponents have countered that the tax would unfairly burden certain businesses and consumers in the city, possibly cost jobs and not provide a stable revenue source for prekindergarten programs.
While the pro-tax group has received a vast majority of its support from Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor, exact details of how funds were used are unknown because the expenditures are lumped into categories in campaign reports. For example, in the latest reporting period the pro-tax group listed in-kind contributions from Bloomberg of nearly $12,300 for “consulting” and $5,000 for “media,” but the report doesn’t state exactly where the money went.
“We continue to be grateful for the support of Michael Bloomberg for our effort to bring Pre-K to Santa Fe’s kids who can’t afford it,” Wechsler said. “We’re up against the soda industry who will spend endless amounts and say anything to the community to protect their profits.”
Most of the support provided by an Albuquerque-based group called Organizing in the Land of Enchantment, which does not disclose its donors, has been in the form of in-kind contributions.
The anti-tax group has been funded almost entirely by the American Beverage Association. The Washington, D.C.based trade group has pumped nearly $1.35 million into the campaign, mostly in cash.
At Johnnie’s Cash Store, a long-time fixture in the eastside Santa Fe neighborhood around Camino Don Miguel, 87-year-old owner Johnnie Armijo knows exactly what he going to do with his business if voters approve the sugary drinks tax.
“I’m closing,” the patriarch of Santa Fe’s oldest familyowned “country store” said as a delivery of sweetened iced tea arrived on Monday afternoon. “I barely make it every year as it is.”
He and his son, Rick Armijo, said soda sales account for much of their business. Four of the six coolers along the front wall are filled mostly with sugary beverages, including Gatorade, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta orange soda, Mountain Dew, and various brands of iced tea.
Santa Fean Andrew Houghton, who came by Johnnie’s on Monday to buy an 8-ounce Dr. Pepper, said he has been shopping at the store for at least 20 years. He likes the idea of using tax money for pre-K programs. But he said a lack of detail over how the city will administer the tax and its past mismanagement of money makes him suspicious enough that he plans to vote against it Tuesday. His fear, he said, is that the tax money would “be mostly applied to some other shortfall.”
Nearby, Boni Armijo, part of the Armijo family that runs the store, shook his head sadly as Houghton spoke.
“Of course I’m against it,” Boni Armijo said. “The city had that $30 million audit with the park money and it never cleared up what happened with all that money. I don’t feel the city knows how to run it.”
As a Catholic, he said, he is none too pleased with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s recent endorsement of the tax. “This is not the business of the church,” he said.
Rick Armijo checked the incoming order of iced tea. The 24-ounce cans go for 99 cents each, he said. If the distributor passes along a two cents per ounce tax, the price would increase to almost $1.50 a can. He said that would encourage shoppers to stop buying such products within city limits.
“It will kill this store” if the tax passes, he said.
At the downtown Kaune’s Neighborhood Market on Old Santa Fe Trail, assistant manager Phil Leyba, a 34-year employee of the family-owned store, outlined his opposition to the tax in one sentence: “I don’t want to lose my job.”
Backers of the tax proposal contend the threat of economic harm is overblown.
At the Center for Progress and Justice on Cerrillos Road, about 30 members of the Pre-K for Santa Fe camp worked the phones on Monday afternoon. Each time one of the volunteers received a potential voter’s expression of support for the tax, a bell rang out, prompting applause and cheers from around the room.
Wechsler, the campaign manager, said she was feeling energized. “We are getting a good reception on the phones and at the door,” she said. “I think people will be willing to show the city’s values by voting for pre-K.”
The mayor’s daughter, Cameron Gonzales, a senior at Santa Fe Prep, said she was volunteering for Pre-K for Santa Fe as part of her school internship and because she believes in the issue. She thinks a majority of voters will approve the tax.
The opposition, she said, “has been scary.”
But registered voters are tired of all the calls from both sides, the 18-year-old said.
“I feel like when I call them now I am bugging them,” she said. “But this is an important election. I say to them, ‘I know this is the 10th time you’ve been called but please get out there and vote.’”