Democrats had controlled the Senate until 1999, when Republicans seized control for the first time in history. From 1999 to 2007 Republicans maintained this majority until Democrats regained control of the Senate in 2007. Democrats controlled the House from 1998-2000, and from 2000-2010 Republicans controlled the House. Therefore, Republicans controlled the entire General Assembly from 1999-2007. The fact that campaign contributions tend to go to the incumbent party partially explains why Republicans were given 209% more contributions in total from 1999-2007 than the Democrats . Republican legislators received significant greater campaign contributions than Democrats in 2007 and in total . Members of the Senate received significant greater contributions than members of the House in 2007 and in total .There was no significant different in policy scores between the two houses of the legislature . To investigate the relationship between policy scores and campaign contributions, we conducted a regression of policy score against party, amount of contributions and house. Because Sen. Walter Stosch received substantially more money than any other member of the legislature, $ 43,245 in 2007 and a total of $90,072 from 1999 to 2007, with the next largest contributions being given to Del. Robert McDonnell received no contributions as a legislator in 2007 but from 1999 to 2007 received $67,242, we included a dummy variable for him in the analysis to control for the fact that,mobile system because he was such an outlier, he was a leverage point in the regression. Table 11 shows the result of this analysis. These results show that, as with the univariate analysis, Republicans were significantly more pro-tobacco than Democrats.

Controlling for party and house, for every $1000 in campaign contributions received in 2007, legislators were -.6 points more pro-tobacco industry and for every $1000 in total contributions they were on average -.1 points more protobacco. period . In 2000, Sen. Stosch joined the Board of Directors of Universal Corporation, a Richmond-based tobacco leaf processor and merchant, while he was a sitting senator.Stosch supported preemption of local smoking restrictions in the debate over a statewide smoking law in 1990,and sponsored Philip Morris-supported legislation in 2005 to end alleged anticompetitive practices by smaller tobacco manufacturers.Philip Morris contributed $35,279 of Stosch’s $90,072 total tobacco industry campaign contributions from 1999-2007. Del. McDonnell received the second-highest amount of tobacco industry contributions. McDonnell opposed tobacco control measures; notably, as Attorney General in 2009 McDonnell opposed restaurant smoking restrictions proposed by the powerful Republican House Speaker William Howell . Del. William Bolling , while receiving the third-highest tobacco industry campaign contributions, generally remained silent on tobacco issues but was a strong proponent of childhood obesity prevention.Lobbyists in Virginia must register with the Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth, and lobbying expenditures must be reported every twelve months . These expenditures are available in a publically accessible database hosted by the Secretary of the Commonwealth.Available data extends back to the 2006 legislative session. The tobacco industry relies on a well-funded and politically connected lobbying effort to oppose tobacco control legislation.Highly-paid tobacco industry lobbyists often forge relationships with powerful legislative allies in order to use quiet, behind-the-scenes tactics to advance the industry’s policy goals.By creating such an “insider” network and consistently outspending health advocates, the tobacco industry has been very successful in its lobbying efforts at a state level.

This situation also prevails in Virginia, where the tobacco industry invested heavily in lobbying. The industry outspent tobacco control advocates nearly 3 to 1 from 2005 to 2009. In total, the tobacco industry spent $2,054,355 from 2005 through 2009 compared to tobacco control interests, which spent $691,305 . Altria/Philip Morris alone spent $778,042, the largest amount of any other individual tobacco industry entity. The tobacco industry in Virginia counted on a broad range of allied interest groups to further its aims. For the most part, the groups made themselves available to industry interests to lobby against perceived anti-tobacco legislation. In some instances, the groups formed coalitions in order to more effectively oppose bills, often organized and implemented by the Tobacco Institute. For example, in 1989 the Tobacco Institute lined up a coalition of nine of the groups listed in Table 17 to oppose clean indoor air legislation expected to be introduced in the 1990 session.As elsewhere, the tobacco industry used trade and hospitality groups to help oppose clean indoor air laws as part of the industry’s continuing program to manipulate such groups into being more credible spokespersons for the industry’s positions.Nationally, Philip Morris was the first tobacco company to initiate a campaign to recruit hospitality industry groups. In 1989, PM employed these relationships to oppose clean indoor air legislation and to distribute industry developed rhetoric concerning accommodation of smokers, which pressured lawmakers to weaken the language of proposed restrictions.Also, hospitality groups were used to promote the claim that economic losses for hospitality establishments would result from smoking restrictions, despite the fact that such claims have been proven false.The Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association had been a primary ally of tobacco industry interests in Virginia. Its subgroup, the Virginia Restaurant Association , was also the main statewide organization for restaurants, VRA having merged with the VHTA in 1993.

The VHTA had been an ally of the tobacco industry since at least 1988, and had participated in a number of activities promoting tobacco industry positions, such as working with the Tobacco Institute to establish a network of industry favorable restaurants and hotels.VHTA was also part of the tobacco industry coalition that opposed the 1990 Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act ,35 and opposed clean indoor air legislation up to and including the 2009 VICAA revision of restaurant smoking restrictions. Convenience store trade associations, including petroleum marketers, were allied with tobacco industry interests nationwide to oppose youth access restrictions and increased cigarette excise taxes.In Virginia, the Virginia Petroleum, Convenience, and Grocery Association supported the tobacco industry’s “We Card” youth access initiative in the 1990s.36 They also opposed increased cigarette excise taxes, including a 2009 attempt by Virginia tobacco control groups. Business groups were allied with the tobacco industry since at least the 1960s. For example, Philip Morris was a corporate member of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce since at least 1967.The Virginia Chamber of Commerce later worked closely with the Tobacco Institute to undermine efforts to enforce statewide clean indoor air laws in the early 1990s.The Washington, DC-based Tobacco Institute , founded in 1958, was the major tobacco manufacturers’ primary public relations and lobbying organization, until it was dissolved in 1998 as a result of state lawsuits against the tobacco industry. TI retained one of the most influential lobbyists on the tobacco industry side, Anthony F. Troy, from at least 1988 until TI dissolved in 1998 .Troy was a former Virginia Attorney General,rack shelving system serving from 1977 to 1978. In addition, Troy was a partner with the influential law firm Troutman Sanders since 1978, and was a lobbyist for Brown, Williamson & Lorillard from 1998 to 2001.40 Troy’s long running presence in Virginia as a TI lobbyist and his prestige as a former attorney general gave TI a strong voice in Richmond. As of 2009, Troy was still a registered lobbyist in Virginia, but did not list any tobacco industry entities as clients for the period of lobbyist disclosure information available .The Tobacco Institute also supported tobacco industry-aligned interests, which in return provided the Tobacco Institute and tobacco manufacturers with a source of grassroots support .TI also had several employees who were influential in organizing activities in Virginia. One employee was Page Sutherland, who served as the regional director for TI in the region that included Virginia. Sutherland had started in 1967 with the Richmond office of the Tobacco Tax Council to oppose cigarette excise taxes, and was funded by the tobacco manufacturers in much the same way as TI. The Richmond TTC merged with the TI in 1982, and its employees were incorporated into TI. The Tobacco Action Network served as the grassroots arm of the TI and was composed of manufacturers’ employees and sales representatives, wholesalers, retailers, and the general public. It was started in 1977 with the purpose of conducting such grassroots activities as letter-writing campaigns. TAN was operated out of the TI general budget.

TAN’s Southeastern area manager was John Bankhead. His district covered the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.Page Sutherland was also a State Director for Virginia with TAN.TAN was not implemented in the tobacco-growing southeastern states until after 1982. In 1982, the Tobacco Institute determined that these states required additional efforts to establish relationships with tobacco growers so that TAN could count on their assistance when needed.The hesitancy meant that in the interim, TAN would focus on gathering support only from the employees of tobacco manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and suppliers.In Virginia, TAN attended hearings to oppose local smoking restrictions, such as the 1979 Falls Church smoking ordinance .However, after this TAN does not appear to have played a very active role in changing legislative opinions or garnering media attention. In a 2009 interview, Anthony Troy, who was the Tobacco Institute’s primary lobbyist in Virginia since 1980, recalled that TAN played little if any role in the tobacco industry’s activities in Virginia.The relationships between tobacco growers and tobacco growing associations with the tobacco industry were not formalized, but existed due to an implicit understanding of the dovetailing interests of the tobacco industry and the growers; the Virginia Farm Bureau, for example, did not agree with the tobacco industry on issues such as tobacco subsidies, but the tobacco industry could count on the Farm Bureau to support their position on issues that would be detrimental to their shared interests, such as clean indoor air laws.While the tobacco growers and the tobacco manufacturers largely shared similar interests with regards to tobacco control legislation, the growers did not take a leading role in opposing tobacco control efforts as they had in other states such as South Carolina.In Virginia, according to a 2009 interview with Anthony Troy, tobacco growers served as a grassroots auxiliary for the tobacco manufacturers.For example, when the tobacco companies wanted to put grassroots pressure on legislators through a letter writing campaign, they would ask for the assistance of the tobacco grower associations. However, it was the Tobacco Institute and the tobacco manufacturers themselves that led the principle efforts to combat tobacco control legislation, and the tobacco growers and grower associations were politically peripheral.Nonetheless, the historical importance of tobacco to Virginia made the tobacco farmers an important rhetorical tool of tobacco industry interests. Tobacco manufacturing is declining in Virginia, further reducing the political importance of tobacco farming with regards to tobacco control issues. Nationwide, cooperation between tobacco growers and the tobacco industry notably declined between 1997 and 2008 due to political and economic ramifications of changes made to the U.S. tobacco market during that period. Starting in 1933, the U.S. tobacco market had been regulated by the federal Tobacco Price Support Program operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program was established to improve tobacco producers’ income through control of supplies, as well as to protect the market from manipulation by tobacco manufacturers trying to keep prices low as they had under the auction system prior to 1933. The program included two primary components: 1) an acreage allotment and an annually-set poundage quota for tobacco growing based on demand from tobacco product manufacturers, and 2) a price support system guaranteeing a minimal price for tobacco grown within the quota system not purchased at auction. This system created tobacco quota holders who had the exclusive right to grow tobacco; they could also lease that right to other farmers. The Tobacco Price Support Program operated effectively through the early 1990s, but as tobacco manufacturers began to use more foreign-grown tobacco and poundage quotas began to decrease correspondingly, tobacco grower organizations began to support eliminating the quota system. Growers argued that the quota system put U.S. growers at a competitive disadvantage because of the costs associated with leasing quotas to separate growers, that the price support system could be manipulated by tobacco manufacturers and that the acreage quota locked growers into producing tobacco with land that could be profitably used for other crops.