Tobacco War: "d0e9619"

The Wellness Foundation

The tobacco industry's fears were confirmed when the California Wellness Foundation initiated a nonpartisan educational campaign to give voters accurate information about Proposition 188. The Wellness Foundation was concerned that Philip Morris and the other tobacco companies were controlling the public's perception of Proposition 188. On October

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17 the Public Media Center, a nonprofit advertising agency in San Francisco, launched a unique $4 million campaign, funded by the California Wellness Foundation, to educate the public about Proposition 188. The campaign was designed to “provide California voters with objective and balanced information on a ballot question that many voters are uncertain or confused about.”^[92] The Public Media Center print, radio, and television advertisements presented the ballot arguments, signatories, and major donors to both sides of Proposition 188. The campaign also presented a toll-free number (1-800-KNOW188) that voters could call for more information. A voter calling the number was sent the Voter Pamphlet (containing the proposition's title and summary, the Legislative Analyst's report, and arguments for and against the proposition). To ensure neutrality in designing its campaign, the Public Media Center did not confer with advocates or opponents of Proposition 188; it relied entirely on publicly available, official information. The Coalition's victory months earlier in securing accurate Voter Pamphlet language proved to be crucial to innovative advertising strategies used by the Public Media Center.

After meeting with representatives of the Coalition and CSSR, the Legislative Analyst stated that Proposition 188 was weaker than the protection most Californians enjoyed. CSSR then sued the Legislative Analyst, Attorney General, signers of the ballot arguments against Proposition 188, and the Coalition, claiming the initiative's ballot label, title, summary, ballot arguments, and Legislative Analyst's statement did not present the public with nonprejudicial statements of the initiative's content and potential effects. On August 12, 1994, the Superior Court ruled in favor of the defendants and allowed the Voter Pamphlet to stand.

Despite the fact that the Public Media Center campaign did not support or oppose Proposition 188, the center's attorney received an inquiry from a deputy attorney general, investigating a complaint lodged against the California Wellness Foundation for supporting the educational campaign.^[128] (California Attorney General Dan Lungren had close ties to the tobacco industry and the Dolphin Group, which managed his unsuccessful bid for governor in 1998.^[129]) The deputy refused to specify who had lodged the complaint, but the Public Media Center interpreted it as a “clumsy attempt to intimidate us” by tobacco industry lawyers.^[130]

By presenting the facts in a clear way, this educational advertising campaign focused media and public attention on the role of the tobacco industry in the Proposition 188 campaign, which forced CSSR to abandon

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its low-profile campaign strategy. CSSR supplemented its direct mail with broadcast advertising using formats almost identical to those of the Public Media Center, with the same visual presentation and voice-over techniques, but presenting only arguments in favor of Proposition 188 and urging a “yes” vote. The Public Media Center sued in federal court, requesting that the copycat ads be taken off the air. The judge granted the Public Media Center's request, but later that same evening an appellate court stayed the restraining order, citing infringement of free political speech.^[131] Despite the loss in appellate court, the legal challenge to the copycat ad was well documented in the media, bringing attention to CSSR and the tobacco industry's role in Proposition 188.

Another CSSR advertisement, which featured middle school vice principal Nancy Frick claiming that Proposition 188 would benefit children, backfired in the last week of October. (Frick's husband had appeared in one of CSSR mailings.^[132]) The Coalition sharply criticized the advertisement, emphasizing the industry's deceptive practices.^[133] Two days later, the Coalition persuaded Frick to retract her comments and widely distributed the retraction, in which she stated that she was unaware Proposition 188 would overturn 300 local laws.^[122]^[134-136] She also demanded that the advertisements be taken off the air.