By Janie Har

Big tobacco will spend big money trying to persuade Oregon voters to reject a cigarette tax increase this fall that would insure more needy children in what looms as one of the priciest ballot measure campaigns in state history.
Cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company filed papers Friday with the state Elections Division to form the “Oregonians Against the Blank Check” committee opposing Measure 50 on the Nov. 6 ballot. Philip Morris USA, which makes Marlboro products, also registered its “Stop the Measure 50 Tax Hike” campaign.

Last year, tobacco companies spent roughly $100 million to fight cigarette tax increases and smoking bans on ballots in several states, according to the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. They failed to defeat tax increases in South Dakota and Arizona but succeeded in Missouri and California. Tobacco companies spent $65 million in California alone, said Cathy Kaufmann, policy director for the nonprofit Children First of Oregon, which is part of the coalition backing the measure.
“They’re going to bring a lot of money to the state, and they’re going to try to make this vote go their way,” Kaufmann said, “but we’re pretty confident Oregonians aren’t going to be fooled.”
Measure 50 would amend the state constitution to increase cigarette taxes by 84.5 cents a pack, raising an estimated $153 million for the current two-year budget and $233 million for 2009-11, most of it to provide health care for more than 100,000 Oregon children. Democrats who control both arms of the Legislature couldn’t muster the votes to pass a straight-up cigarette tax increase, but they had enough Republican support to put the issue before voters.
Opponents call the proposal unsustainable, unfair to smokers and inappropriate to put into the constitution. They say the law gives legislators flexibility to spend as much as $68 million on other health services.
“Our contention is that it’s not so much about insuring kids as it is about providing blank checks for various interest groups,” said J.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds campaign.
“When you see the money doesn’t go to healthy kids, perhaps it’s not appropriate to be saying it’s a healthy kids measure.”
Wilson said he expects his campaign to spend $3 million. “Of course,” he added, “we reserve the right to spend more.”
Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Philip Morris, wouldn’t comment on campaign strategy or how much the company plans to spend in Oregon.
Last week, a group of supporters calling itself the “Healthy Kids Oregon” coalition said it had raised $700,000 in cash and commitments from hospitals, nurses, unions and health groups.
Spending by cigarette makers could rival or top that of Liberty Northwest, the workers’ insurance company that spent a record $5.6 million in 2004 on a ballot measure to get rid of rival Saif Corp. That same year, doctors and others in the health care industry spent $5.2 million trying to limit medical malpractice awards.
Last fall, insurance companies ponied up $5 million to successfully fight a ballot measure that would have banned the use of credit scores in setting insurance rates.