The 2014 election featured four high-profile attempts by the national food nanny movement to impose its agenda through municipal and state ballot initiatives. Voters in Oregon and Colorado rejected mandatory “genetically-modified organism” (GMO) food-labeling measures, while voters in two California cities split on sin taxes for “sugary” drinks.
Food Labeling. Exactly 2/3 of Colorado voters said “no” to the Colorado Right to Know Act. The vote on Oregon’s Measure 92 was considerably closer, with the “no’s” outnumbering the “yes’s” 50.7% to 49.3%. Each initiative trumpeted the superficial appeal of consumers’ “right-to-know,” and both made the oft-repeated misleading or false claims in their legislative “findings” sections that GMOs in food are unregulated, unsafe, and unhealthy. Much like California’s unsuccessful Proposition 37 initiative, the Oregon and Colorado proposals were riddled with labeling exemptions, including food served at restaurants and alcoholic beverages. Oregon’s proposal would have also unleashed the plaintiffs’ bar on food processors through a “private attorney general” enforcement provision.
Thin Taxes? Two California municipalities, San Francisco and Berkeley, held votes on soda excise taxes. The Berkeley measure, which passed by a large margin, imposes a one-cent-per-fluid-ounce tax on all soda, energy drinks, coffee syrups, sweetened tea, and other packaged “sugary” drinks, while exempting milk and diet soda. The failed San Francisco initiative would have imposed a two-cent-per-fluid-ounce tax on sodas and other sugar-sweetened drinks, including some juices, coffees and flavored waters. It garnered 55% at the polls, but fell short of the 66% “yes” votes needed for measures whose revenues are aimed at a specific purpose. The initiative would have funded children’s nutrition and physical education programs. The revenues from Berkeley’s tax measure will go into the city’s general fund.
The Bigger Picture. Mandatory GMO-labeling proponents have now lost each of their four initiative campaigns. And they have failed in states where one might think voters would overwhelmingly support such progressive measures: California, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. With 2015 being a slow year for elections, activists will likely turn their attention now to state legislatures. The negative opinions of hundreds of thousands of voters in the aforementioned states should speak volumes to politicians in other states about mandatory GMO labeling. In addition, as several WLF publications have explained (i.e. here and here)—and a suit against Vermont’s labeling mandate argues—such mandates infringe on federal authority to regulate food labels and tread on food producers’ constitutional rights. Policy makers should bear these points in mind, and keep a watchful eye on the legal challenge to Vermont’s law, when they are urged to embrace mandated labeling.
Nutrition nannies such as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have trumpeted the Berkeley vote as a watershed moment. Given the Berkeley electorate’s historical affinity for fringe movements and big government, the outcome is more likely an aberration than a harbinger. The result also should be considered counterproductive for the fight against obesity. It advances the entirely baseless notion that regressive taxes on soda and other disfavored beverages will benefit taxpayers’ health. Reliance on such taxes also detracts attention and energy from actual solutions to America’s expanding waistline. But considering the financial largesse of benefactors like Mr. Bloomberg and the zeal of his activist allies, the fight over manipulative sin taxes is likely to continue.
Also published by Forbes.com on WLF’s contributor page