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Mayor Nutter says the city won't take money from Big Beverage; his own campaign is another story
Shortly after the news broke, Nutter tweeted the following: "Taking money from Big Soda to fight obesity is like taking money from the NRA to fight guns. You can't buy this City Hall."
Mayor Nutter says the city won't take money from Big Beverage; his own campaign is another story
Yesterday, the Inquirer reported that the Nutter administration has rejected a grant of an undisclosed amount for anti-obesity programs from the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP).
The reason, said Health Commissioner Donald Schwartz, is that the money originates from a $10 million grant to CHOP from the American Beverage Industry — an industry that lobbied hard to kill Mayor Michael Nutter's proposed tax on sweetened beverages, which the administration hoped would help curb obesity.
The administration characterized the decision as a matter of principle. Schwartz told the Inquirer that "We should not be receiving funding from the beverage industry to fund a program in the city ... because we wouldn't take funding like that from other industries, like the gun industry or the tobacco industry ... We have taken a stand that opposes the products that they sell." Shortly after the news broke, Nutter tweeted the following: "Taking money from Big Soda to fight obesity is like taking money from the NRA to fight guns. You can't buy this City Hall."
Yet Nutter has received substantial donations to his own campaign fund from Big Beverage, as recently as this year — long after he began pushing for the industry-hated tax. Local soda magnate Harold Honickman, who lobbied hard and heavy against Nutter's bills, has donated generously to the mayor, along with family members.
To be fair to Nutter, those donations both proceeded and followed his attempts to tax the industry. Nutter's acceptance of those donations doesn't seem to have affected that choice — a point which it might be harder to make for many members of City Council, who have accepted vast sums of money from the industry and twice killed the proposal.
Nutter spokesman Mark McDonald told CP today that there's a distinction between accepting personal campaign contributions and the city accepting money for public health programs. "There's running a campaign, and there's running a city," said McDonald. "The Honickmans are stellar people who support good government. The mayor made a clear distinction and did not want to involve, even indirectly, Big Soda money in a program that would have arguably been in health centers. We have our own program. CHOP has its own program."
According to Philadelphia campaign finance records, Harold, Lynne and Jeffrey Honickman donated at least $36,600 since 2006 to the Nutter for Mayor campaign. At least four of those donations, totaling $10,400, were made after the mayor first announced his plan to tax sweetened beverages in May 2010.
Nutter has also received at least two large donations from soda industry lobbies, though both predate his "soda tax." In May 2007, the Phila Coca Cola Employee Good Government PAC donated $2,000 to his campaign. In Oct. 2007, the New York City Pepsi Cola PAC donated $10,000.
On a side note: In June of this year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, of which Nutter serves as Vice President, "announced a partnership" with the American Beverage Association for a three-year, $3 million anti-obesity program.
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