The hypothesis was that tobacco industry campaign contributions were associated with sympathetic behavior towards the tobacco industry and that the tobacco industry may continue to provide or increase contributions to legislators who have acted in the tobacco industry’s best interest in the past.The first equation predicts the tobacco policy score given to legislators in 2005 from the total tobacco industry campaign contributions received from 1999-2002 and political affiliation. The second equation predicts the total tobacco industry campaign industry contributions received from 1999- 2002 from the tobacco policy score and political affiliation. The total tobacco campaign contributions used here include contributions from the tobacco industry and contributions from tobacco industry third party allies. The results of this analysis presented in Table 7 demonstrate a strong effect of tobacco industry contributions on legislative behavior, as well as a strong relationship between political party affiliation and legislative behavior. For every $100 increase in tobacco industry contributions, a legislator’s tobacco policy score decreased by an average of 0.5 points. On average, controlling for the amount of tobacco industry contributions received, Republican legislators had tobacco policy scores that were 4.5 points below than those of Democrats. All of the findings were statistically significant . In 1994, the Attorneys General of Mississippi and the Attorney General of Minnesota sued the four major tobacco companies to recover the costs to their states’ Medicaid programs for treating tobacco related illnesses and to force changes in tobacco industry marketing practices.

Several other states in the country soon followed, and in 1996, a group of attorneys general, private attorneys,ebb and flow benches public health advocates, and tobacco industry representatives began closed-door meetings to discuss a “global settlement” of all public and private litigation.This global settlement would have required Congress to grant the tobacco industry substantial relief from punitive damages in present and future litigation, as well as a cap on annual litigation payments. In exchange, the tobacco industry would have accepted federal regulation of marketing and advertising, as well as Food and Drug Administration jurisdiction on tobacco products. The tobacco companies would have also funded tobacco control education and made substantial payments to governments and private parties engaged in lawsuits. However, the immunity provisions which required changes to federal law, and thus legislation, opened the agreement up to public scrutiny.Though many proponents of the global settlement agreement saw it as an opportunity for new levels of progress, many in the public health community saw the agreement as “mortgaging the future,” and were especially opposed to the immunity provisions.The global settlement would ultimately die in the Senate in April 1998.88 Meanwhile, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Minnesota each settled with the tobacco companies in separate agreements.These agreements provided increasing amount of money to the states to reimburse them for Medicaid costs, as well as increasing restrictions on tobacco industry marketing and funding for state anti-smoking programs. Each settlement included a “most favored nations” clause which meant that better terms in subsequent settlements would apply to the earlier settlements. Montana Attorney General Joe Mazurek filed suit on behalf of Montana in May 1997.In November 1998, the attorneys general of 46 states reached a settlement with the four largest tobacco companies, called the Master Settlement Agreement , designed to resolve litigation between many of the states involved in the global settlement agreement and the tobacco industry.

Under the terms of the agreement, the 46 participating states would receive indefinite payments , with Montana’s share estimated to be $922.1 million through 2025.The first payment to Montana was made in 1999, with annual payments ranging from $10.5 million to $30.9 million over the first few year.When the MSA was signed in 1998, the settlement was unanimously endorsed in Montana by the governor, state public health officials and various health organizations.Montana governor Marck Racicot , who later became the Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2002, applauded the deal, saying, “it is time for our state and our country to acknowledge and attack what is perhaps our greatest public health challenge.”Gov. Racicot, who had served as Attorney General from 1988 to 1992, had a thorough understanding of the MSA and was supportive of tobacco control, and had a good relationship with Attorney General Joe Mazurek, who advocated for Montana’s involvement in the MSA, as well as for the use of MSA money for health programs and tobacco use prevention.95, 96 Health organizations also publicly supported the MSA. Art Dickh off of the Montana chapter of the American Cancer Society called the decision a landmark effort to stem smoking and protect children from being targeted by the tobacco industry.Dennis Alexander, Executive Director of the American Lung Association of the Northern Rockies, said that the agreement was “a positive first step in protecting public health from an addictive product that kills nearly a half-million people each year in this country.”Because state attorneys general do not have authority over state spending, the MSA contained no provisions with regard to the ways in which the states would spend their funds.However, even before the state had agreed to the MSA, Montana officials were expressing a desire to divide the money between the general fund and public health programs. The Public Health and Human Services Department suggested that 30 percent of the money be put into the state’s general fund and the remainder be divided evenly among three programs: “One would be aimed at preventing and reducing tobacco use, another would create an endowment to improve the general health of Montanans and the third would help pay for health insurance for poor children.”However, the strong desire of health advocates and state officials to use the MSA money mainly on health programs, with some portion going towards tobacco control programs, would be overwhelmed by the number of state legislators vying to use MSA funds for various projects. As would be the case in almost every state that participated in the MSA,only a small portion of the MSA money in Montana would end up being devoted to tobacco control programs.

By January 1999, Montana state legislators had filed 14 bills with various ideas on how to divide the tobacco settlement money, with proposals ranging from building a multi-million-dollar dinosaur museum to giving tax incentives to small businesses for offering health benefits. A divide between Montana’s two major political parties soon formed over the issue, with Democrats wanting to put the money in a trust fund to help pay for future medical costs, while Republicans wanted the money to go toward tax relief. A similar divide occurred over the allocation of Minnesota’s MSA fund, where some elected officials wanted to create a health and social programs endowment fund and provide tax rebates, while tobacco control advocates favored funding a statewide comprehensive tobacco control program.Diversion of MSA funds away from tobacco control programs had occurred in almost every other state as well. By 2004,commercial greenhouse shelving only four states had funded state tobacco prevention programs to the minimum level recommended by the Center for Disease Control’s Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs.In Montana, some of the proposed MSA allocation bills would be defeated almost immediately, while others were the subject of more prolonged debates and media attention. Tobacco control advocates appeared at some of the committee hearings to support the use of MSA money for tobacco prevention and health programs, though they seemed generally unprepared to oppose all of the different interests that wanted the MSA funds for various government programs, especially in a Republican controlled legislature that wanted most of the money for tax relief. Indeed, health advocates might have been even less successful if not for Governor Racicot’s support of tobacco prevention and public health policies, and his strong popularity in the state. Table 9 lists all of proposed tobacco settlement allocation bills in the 1999 regular session, ordered by the date of the last action taken on each bill. Those bills that progressed farther into the legislative process and were the subject of some debate are in bold font and discussed in the following paragraphs, as opposed to those bills that were quickly rejected or passed without substantial debate.

Attorney General Joe Mazurek , in addition to testifying at the House Appropriations Committee hearing, was also lobbying lawmakers to use the settlement money for health and prevention programs and touring the state to get public support for HB 131. Mazurek’s message to legislators was to remind them that the reason Montana joined the multi-state lawsuit was to get compensation for health damages caused by the sale and use of tobacco, and to “stop children from starting” tobacco use.In addition, Mazurek and Chris Tweeton, the Chief Deputy Attorney General who had also worked on the tobacco lawsuit, held public forums titled “Stop kids from smoking or fill potholes.”The two had held four such forums by March 9,1999, in which Mazurek explained that there would be constant pressure on lawmakers to “chip away” at the settlement. Mazurek thought that even though “the Legislature has taken a pretty responsible view of this so far,” he warned that “there may be pressure to push this money in other directions.”The Republican majority in the House strongly supported the use of MSA money for other government programs, such as tax relief, and on March 19, 1999, the House Appropriations Committee amended HB 131 and then approved it in a 17 to 1 vote.As amended, the bill’s allocation to the general fund was increased from 30% to 40%, because legislators wanted more money available in the general fund. The rest of the MSA money was to be divided as follows: 10% to the children’s health insurance plan , 3.4% to the Montana Comprehensive Health Association, and 46% to the Department of Health for health and prevention programs, which included tobacco use prevention and control.Programs funded by these grants could include efforts against use of tobacco, but also could address other health issues.Though supporters of tobacco control were disappointed by the amendment, they did not consider it a major setback, since much of the money would still be available for health and tobacco use preventions programs, and would be allocated at the direction of the Public Health and Human Services Department under a tobacco-control friendly administration. In reaction to the amendment, Attorney General Joe Mazurek told the Associated Press that he would have preferred more money for the health-care trust and less for the general fund, but thought the distributions showed a commitment to public health, especially considering that some states had found far-flung uses for their tobacco money, and had put much less money toward tobacco-control.On March 24, 1999, HB 131 reached the full House, and the Republican majority successfully pushed an amendment by House Majority Leader Larry Grinde -Lewiston, to reserve half the MSA for tax relief in the 2003-2005 biennium.Grinde’s reasoning behind the proposal was that the taxpayers deserved financial compensation after years of helping to pay the states share of Medicaid coverage for people with tobacco-related illnesses.Legislators voted 50-48 that half of each annual payment had to be set aside in a special account for future legislatures to spend on providing tax relief.The remaining half of the MSA payments would be divided among tobacco prevention projects and health care programs, in accordance with the previous percentage allocations in HB 131 A preliminary House vote had originally passed HB 131 by 64 to 36 on March 24, 1999 with bipartisan support. Many legislators believed that this particular vote in the House was not definitive, since debates over allocations in HB 131 would continue both in the House before the next vote, and again when it was transmitted to the Senate where a joint conference committee would have to resolve House-Senate differences.But on the next day, March 25, 1999, many House Democrats, guided by Minority Leader Emily Swanson and joined by House Republicans, opposed the bill because of the new government programs it would create.