PCA Magazine Winter 2020

16 PCA The Magazine | WINTER 2020 PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG members with legislators. Bipartisan, bicameral legislative cigar caucuses have been formed with the encouragement and support of PCA staff. Recent conversations with Senate leadership and the bill sponsor indicate quick action early this year. Chicago Lawsuit The Illinois Supreme Court issued a ruling striking down a Chicago ordinance that imposed local excise taxes on numerous tobacco products including cigars, smokeless tobacco, pipe tobacco and roll-your-own cigarette tobacco. Originally passed by the Chicago City Council in 2016, the ordinance sought to impose local excise taxes of $0.20 per cigar, $1.80 per ounce on smokeless tobacco products, $.60 per ounce on pipe tobacco and $1.80 per ounce on roll-your-own cigarette tobacco. In the ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court held that Illinois state law specifically precludes a home rule city such as Chicago from adopting an excise tax on either cigarettes or other tobacco products unless the city had already adopted such a tax before July 1, 1993. While the City of Chicago had adopted a local tax on cigarettes prior to July of 1993, the city had not adopted a local excise tax on any other kind of tobacco product. Regional Model PCA continued implementation of our regional state lobbying model with the hire of experienced government affairs professional, David Jessup. This long-term strategy brings dedicated state lobbyists on to manage territories of states, eliminating the need for individual state contract lobbyists. Modeled after the government affairs departments of some of the country’s most influential trade associations, PCA has demonstrated that the regional model cuts costs, expands influence and allows state associations to focus on advocacy rather than fundraising. Lobbyists have been hired to cover the following territories so far: Tyler Henson – Tyler@ premiumcigars.org (2016) Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas Brett Mecum – Brett@ premiumcigars.org (2017) Oklahoma, Nebraska, S T A T E B R I E F I N G Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, New York, Iowa, Arkansas David Jessup – David@ premiumcigars.org (2019) Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee State Member Communications This year, our state team set out to improve and expand our member communications. We increased our state email communications by 133 percent from 2018 to 2019, which was already an improvement over the previous year. We will continue to strive to do better next year. Keeping our members engaged and informed on state legislative and regulatory activities is critical to our success. PCA’s state government affairs team looks forward to continuing our work on your behalf in 2020. Please contact Rachel Hall at rachel@premiumcigars. org , or your regional representative if you have ideas, questions or concerns about your state or our department. We welcome and appreciate State Briefing cont.