Big Tobacco Makes Strategic Campaign Investments in Illinois Primaries

As health advocates know, you can never count out the tobacco companies when it comes to issues pending in Springfield. That's why this item from today's Capitol Fax Blog by Rich Miller was particularly interesting.... Read more at http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/.

BIG TOBACCO POWERS UP The parent company of American cigarette maker RJ Reynolds has dumped over $61,000 into legislative primaries in the past few weeks. And it appears the company is focusing on helping a few House members who are getting lots of attention from Speaker Michael Madigan's operation.The company, Reynolds American, has spent more in the last two weeks than it spent on the last two elections combined. But where it is spending money is almost as interesting as how much it is spending. The "why" is pretty easy to figure out. The Senate has already approved a cigarette tax hike and House Speaker Michael Madigan has said he's open to the idea of boosting the cigarette tax by as much as a dollar a pack to subsidize a health insurance expansion plan. Such a tax would raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and cigarette companies are naturally worried that the impact of the tax hike coupled with the new statewide public smoking ban would be really bad for business. So, a bit of cash now invested in a few strategically placed House races might be worth the company's while.