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All Anne Northup wants is to stop kids from smoking cigarettes and to add a few cents tax to each pack of Marlboros the grown-ups buy. But for such effrontery, state Representative Northup is getting plenty of old-fashioned grief. When she came up to argue for her bill last year, a colleague suggested she was the kind of woman who doesn't "shave the hair off [her legs] or use deodorant." One tobacco farmer said recently, "She probably needs to be home making cookies."
In most places, this fight was fought years ago. But this is Kentucky. Even in 1993 the Bluegrass State is a place where smoking is an act of patriotism, statehouse chambers are truly smoke-filled and $2.7 million in tax revenue this year will go to fund the Tobacco and Health Institute, a research center dedicated, says its director, to engineering "the bad things" out of the tobacco plant. Tobacco is the second biggest cash crop in Kentucky (after marijuana). It's a livelihood for more than 60,000 small farmers, their families and the tractor mechanics, construction companies and coffee shops that depend on their business. Even in Louisville, where there are no farmers, there's Philip Morris. The company buys more Kentucky tobacco than any other firm, employs 2,850 plant workers, is patron of everything from the arts to Boy Scouts and keeps change jingling in politicians' pockets. Tobacco is as much a Kentucky icon as whisky, racehorses or a Democrat in the governor's mansion.
So this battle isn't just a matter of smokers versus nonsmokers or, as such traitors are known here, "the antis." For the state it's a struggle over preserving a way of life in dozens of farm communities. And for the cigarette industry it is a critical test: can it hold onto the faith-and political clout-of U.S. tobacco farmers, or will it be left without constituents?
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For the moment Kentucky is "a tobacco state," as Philip Morris lobbyist Jay Poole calls it. Per capita cigarette consumption is higher than in any other state. But 7,000 a year die of smoking-related diseases , and consumption has declined. Other forces are sending the farmer as well as the smoker a signal: times are changing. Tobacco companies are moving much of their operations closer to new customers overseas. The companies just announced they will buy 19 percent less tobacco this year than last.
Enter Anne Northup, with two messages: Kentucky's citizens should stop smoking, and Kentucky's farmers should find alternatives to a crop they will slowly lose anyway. She is an unlikely as well as unpopular prophet. As the Frankfort State Journal put it "She's from Louisville. She's a Republican. And she's a she." In plaid and pearls, with a distracted air, Northup, 45, also seems an unlikely rabblerouser. She's the second oldest of a Louisville family of 11 children, all big achievers. (One sister is Mary T. Meagher, a three-time gold medalist in the 1984 Olympics.) And she inhaled politics at the feet of her father, a precinct captain. Even as a third grader, she remembers hanging around the polls until her father would tell her which Republicans hadn't come down to vote. Then she'd run from door to door rousing the recalcitrants. So when her six children were all in school, Northup began to edge back into politics. By 1987 she was drafted by her party to run in a special election, and she won.
In 1988 she got her first visit from the antis, including Barbara Phillips, a doctor who doesn't blanch at telling local audiences that Philip Morris is "evil." Phillips wanted help defeating a bill that would assure every high school the right to set aside student smoking areas. Northup, who had only just given up smoking, almost laughed. After all, the political role model in Kentucky was U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford, who proudly puffed his way through his campaign last year. "I knew there was no stopping that bill," says Northup. "And to be honest, I really didn't want to hear what they had to say. I still believed that Philip Morris was the epitome of the good citizen."
But her interest was piqued. She began research on how the industry was fighting to keep its market and how children were a critical target for it. She also discovered the companies were pouring money into factories and farms in low-wage countries such as Brazil and Malawi. Philip Morris says that, while it is looking to cut costs, it has a good future in Kentucky. But Northup came to believe that the fate of the companies and Kentucky farmers were no longer one.
Last winter Northup proposed a bill that would prohibit the sale of cigarettes to kids under 18 and forbid companies from giving kids free samples, among other things. But the other half of the bill was the kicker: Northup proposed a three-cents-a-pound tax on tobacco sold in the state, with proceeds going to develop other crops and bring in food-processing plants.
Her fellow lawmakers, many of them farmers themselves, says one statehouse aide, "went ape." The tobacco companies sent top lobbyists to the capitol in Frankfort to rally the troops. Friends in Louisville, who sat on boards of organizations supported by Philip Morris, hinted to her that she should back off. Says Jill Keeney, an editorial writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal, "She's been advised every step of the way by nearly everybody that this ... could only hurt her."
But Northup would recite to herself "What can I lose?" If her political career torpedoed, she'd find something else to do. Meanwhile, she called on a coalition of parents, doctors, nurses and others from the "anti" community. She threatened to hold daily press conferences, one proposing to change the name of the Tobacco and Health Institute to "The Tobacco or Health Institute," the other charging that Philip Morris subsidiary Kraft was squeezing Kentucky dairy farmers.
Finally Northup struck a classic backroom deal. She'd drop the tax idea and the publicity stuff if the kids bill was allowed to go through. Even the kids provision prompted a wild session, with fellow lawmakers cheering when one proposed that "a little corporal punishment" was the best way to stop kids from smoking. Not one legislator cosponsored the bill. But it passed.
But Northup is ready for another fight. She's circulating a draft brochure headlined: HOW CAN KENTUCKY RAISE $110.4 MILLION WITHOUT RAISING YOUR INCOME TAXES? Inside is an argument for a new excise tax. Northup could find new support. A new ethics law could make the cigarette lobby less influential. And U.S. Rep. Romano Mazzoli, who's been briefed by Northup, says he's rethinking his long friendship with the cigarette companies. The governor has even banned smoking in some executive offices. But Northup's victories haven't endeared her to those with the most to lose. "The future looks bleak," agrees Charles Wright, a New Columbus farmer who has already tried to diversify his crop. Is Anne Northup a savior? No way. Her determination to tax the plant they and their fathers have grown seems a betrayal. Says one farmer, "Does Florida tax oranges?" In fact, Florida does. But Northup needs more than cold facts to convince farmers she's on their side. So far, she's not getting through.
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