The Federal Communications Commission

ANR decided to use the truth-in-advertising provisions of the Federal Communications Act to force the tobacco industry to clearly disclose its sponsorship of Proposition 188 in radio and television advertisements. ANR reasoned that requiring disclosure of tobacco industry funding would reduce the effectiveness of the Yes on 188 advertisements, and perhaps even make them counterproductive. ANR had used a similar tactic successfully during the Proposition P campaign in San Francisco in 1983 (see chapter 2). On October 20 ANR sought help from the Media Access Project, a nonprofit telecommunications law firm in Washington, DC.^[137] Since CSSR had filed with the California secretary of state as “Californians for Statewide Smoking Restrictions—Yes on 188, a committee of Hotels, Restaurants, Philip Morris, Inc. and other tobacco companies,” as required by California law, the Media Access Project believed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would likely agree that all CSSR's advertisements should reveal the entire committee name.^[137]

On October 21 ANR informed all radio broadcasters running CSSR's

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advertising that their failure to reveal CSSR's complete legal name at the end of all commercials was in violation of FCC regulations and that unless the advertisements were corrected by October 24, ANR would file a complaint against the station with the FCC.^[138] Many stations immediately changed the commercials.^[139] On October 25 ANR filed a complaint with the FCC against several stations who had refused to comply.^[140] In addition to forcing many stations to change the Yes on 188 advertisements, the controversy surrounding the FCC complaints focused the media on Proposition 188.

ANR's actions took place the same day that the Coalition held a press conference unveiling its Koop advertisement, with the hope of generating free media attention. (At that point the Coalition still did not have money to purchase air time to run the advertisements.) Although the other Coalition members failed at first to see the value of the ANR strategy, once the complaint proved useful, they cooperated with ANR. Ten days later the Coalition joined ANR in a new complaint to the FCC against television broadcasters who refused to modify CSSR's advertisements to disclose the tobacco companies' involvement.^[141] On November 1 the FCC made an informal determination that proper disclosure after CSSR's commercials should include the information about tobacco industry sponsorship.^[142]

By November 2, 1994, the tobacco industry's tracking polls showed that Proposition 188 was losing, along with these findings:

As voters become more aware of the initiative's sponsorship, they tend to become opposed to Proposition 188.

We have learned the opposition has doubled their air time purchase for the remainder of the campaign using Wellness Foundation money.

We have targeted mailings, television and radio spots dropping during the next three to five days. Unpaid media continues to be manageable, but the infusion of Proposition 99 ads and Wellness Foundation funded ads are responsible for the shift in poll numbers.^[143]

On November 8, Proposition 188 was defeated by a vote of 71 percent against to 29 percent for—the widest spread of any measure on the ballot. Thirty-eight percent of the people who voted against Proposition 188 stated that they did so to protect smoke-free public places, and another 22 percent voted against it because it was sponsored by the tobacco industry.^[144] Seventeen percent of the people who voted for the initiative did so because they still felt it was an anti-smoking measure. Proposition 188 lost in every county in California, liberal and conservative, urban

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and rural. As Philip Morris's overwhelming defeat at the polls demonstrated, tobacco control had become a popular issue that cut across all demographic, geographic, and party lines. According to Peter Hanauer, one of the original tobacco control activists from the Proposition 5 campaign of 1978, “That was the icing on the cake in terms of showing the extent to which the tobacco industry had fallen out of favor.”^[145]

AB 13 was implemented on January 1, 1995. Restrictions on smoking in bars were to take effect January 1, 1997. The following year the tobacco industry convinced the Legislature to delay the smoke-free bar provision until January 1, 1998; the public health groups, who thought that the state was not ready for smoke-free bars at the time, put up only token opposition. In the fall of 1997 the tobacco industry tried to delay the effective date again. This time the health groups mobilized and beat the industry. Senate president pro tem Bill Lockyer shifted sides and helped the health groups defeat the tobacco industry. On January 1, 1998, all bars in California became smoke free.