Big Soda, Bad Politics

You might have heard about how Big Soda manipulated California's initiative process in order to get the state legislature to pass legislation that prohibits California cities from enacting local soda taxes.

How did they do it? Big Soda and their California Business Roundtable allies invested $7 million to put a statewide anti-local tax measure on the November 2018 ballot. The initiative would have stopped local governments from passing revenue measures by majority vote and instead required revenue measures to be put on the ballot and passed with a supermajority vote of local citizens; decimating the ability of cities, counties, park districts and all local jurisdictions to fund basic services.

With signatures gathered and the ballot measure ready to go, reps from Pepsi, Coca Cola and the American Beverage Industry Association dangled their proposal: we'll remove the initiative as long as the legislature acts to stop all local taxes on sugar sweetened beverages until 2030. Thus emerged the bill, AB 1838, which Governor Brown signed into law in June.

My Senate and Assembly colleagues and I were presented with an excruciating choice-pass the legislation Big Soda was demanding or jeopardize the revenues of local governments up and down the state.

What was the beverage industry's motivation? Money. Not only was Big soda having to spend millions to try to defeat each local soda tax effort, successful local taxes were causing sugar sweetened beverage sales to drop!

And nowhere has Big Soda been impacted more than here in Senate District 9. Our voters have led the charge. Richmond kicked off the local soda tax effort in 2012. While Richmond's initial attempt did not succeed, Berkeley's 2014 effort did, and Berkeley became the first U.S. city to pass a soda tax, followed by Oakland and Albany two years later (as well as San Francisco and Boulder, CO). These were hard fought successes, with the soft drink industry spending about $30 million in their attempt to defeat them.

In recognition of the leadership of Senate District 9 residents, I voted no on AB 1838. Although I voted no, I fully respect and understand my colleagues' decisions to cast yes votes in order to protect state and local government revenues.

Passing AB 1838 removed the statewide ballot measure, but it also eliminated individual cities' right to pass soda taxes. While Richmond and the other communities considering a soda tax for this coming November can no longer pursue that option, AB 1838 did preserve the soda taxes already enacted in Berkeley, Albany, Oakland, and San Francisco.

I look forward to the 2020 soda tax initiative to help increase public awareness of the dangers of soda drinks. Ultimately, that could be a sweet victory not only for preventing and combating diabetes, obesity and tooth decay, but giving voters a chance to fight back against the soda industry's cynical power play.

Sincerely,

Nancy Skinner
Senator, 9th District

P.S. Some facts to consider: sugar sweetened beverages represent the single largest source of increased sugar and calories in US children's diets. Consumption of one 20 ounce container a day, which is the standard vending machine bottle size and holds the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar, increases the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes by 26 percent. Mexico, Ireland and the United Kingdom have all passed national sugar sweetened beverage taxes and reported a subsequent decrease in consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.