How Texas Wine Consumers Can Respond
July 21, 2008 – 7:30 amIn the comment section of a the previous post on the current state of wine shipping in Texas, Josh made a simple request:
“I wish you would also publish information on how consumers can fight against this kind of industry abuse. Where can we donate money? Who are the politicians in Texas supporting this anti-competitive thrust?”
The fact is, no organization in America besides Specialty Wine Retailers Association is actively standing up for adult consumers who wish to access wines their local wholesalers won’t bring into the market and provide to retailers for resale. Specialty Wine Retailers Association is the only organization in the United States, let alone Texas, that is working on behalf of adult consumers and fine wine retailers to overcome the discriminatory laws that alcohol wholesalers spend millions of dollars to keep in place.
SWRA litigates, lobbies and educates on this issue in states across the country, including Texas.
Consumers who want to join the effort to put an end to blatantly protective and discriminatory laws that block retailers and adult consumers from doing business can DONATE to Specialty Wine Retailers in in amount BY SIMPLY CLICKING HERE.
SWRA is largely funded by retailers of all stripes from across the country. They include brick and mortar retailers, Internet wine retailers, wine clubs and auction houses. But this organization has also seen numerous consumers who are fed up with “protection politics” step up and donate to this cause.
Yet while SWRA is outspent by wholesalers at ever turn and while this battle is enormously expensive to fight, consumers do have one tool at their disposal that costs them nothing and that does make a difference: Their Pens.
If you live in a state that prevents you from purchasing wine from an out-of-state wine retailer and if you are fed up with wholesalers telling you to sit down, shut up, and like the pitiful selection of wines they provide you with, then pick up your pen and write your state legislators and tell them your thoughts. Finding their email o the Internet is simple. Writing an email is simple. Telephoning them is simple. The more people they hear from on this matter, the more likely they will be to listen when the issue comes before them. And the issue will eventually come before them.
As for Josh’s question concerning which legislators in Texas support anti-competitive laws in Texas, the best indication is to look at which legislators voted for Senate Bill 1229 in 2007.
This bill was passed at the behest of Texas alcohol wholesalers who thought that by implementing a law that restricts Texas retailers from shipping wine anywhere outside the county in which their store resides they would be able to thwart a lawsuit that SWRA had brought against the state for its unconstitutional discrimination against out-of-state retailers. The judge in our Texas lawsuit correctly noted that this desperate attempt by wholesalers and their protectors in the Texas legislature did nothing to overcome the discriminatory nature of the Texas law.
Those members of the Texas Assembly that voted for this anti-consumer bill include:
Allen; Alonzo; Anchia; Anderson; Bailey; Berman; Bolton;
Bonnen; Branch; Brown, F.; Burnam; Callegari; Chavez; Cohen; Coleman; Cook,
B.; Cook, R.; Crownover; Davis, J.; Davis, Y.; Delisi; Deshotel; Driver; Dukes;
Dunnam; Eiland; Eissler; Elkins; England; Escobar; Farabee; Farias; Farrar;
Flores; Flynn; Frost; Garcia; Geren; Giddings; Gonzales; Gonzalez Toureilles;
Goolsby; Guillen; Haggerty; Hamilton; Hardcastle; Harless; Harper-Brown;
Hartnett; Heflin; Hernandez; Herrero; Hilderbran; Hill; Hochberg; Hodge;
Homer; Hopson; Howard, C.; Howard, D.; Hughes; Isett; Jackson; Jones; Keffer;
King, P.; King, S.; King, T.; Krusee; Kuempel; Latham; Laubenberg; Leibowitz;
Macias; Madden; Mallory Caraway; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McCall;
McClendon; McReynolds; Menendez; Merritt; Miles; Miller; Morrison; Murphy;
Naishtat; Noriega; O D’ ay; Oliveira; Olivo; Orr; Ortiz; Otto; Parker; Patrick;
Paxton; Pen˜ a; Pickett; Pitts; Puente; Quintanilla; Raymond; Riddle; Ritter;
Rodriguez; Rose; Smith, T.; Smith, W.; Solomons; Strama; Straus; Swinford;
Taylor; Thompson; Truitt; Turner; Van Arsdale; Vaught; Villarreal; Vo; West;
Woolley; Zedler; Zerwas.
In the Texas Senate, every member voted YES to this anti-consumer bill, save for Senator Estes.
So to answer Josh’s question about who supports anti-competitive and anti-consumer legislation concerning wine shipping: JUST ABOUT EVERYONE!
How could this be the case? Since the year 2000, Texas alcohol wholesalers have given more than $7.5 million in contributions to Texas political campaigns, an amount that dwarfs the contributions by wholesalers in every state in the Union for that same time frame.
2 Responses to “How Texas Wine Consumers Can Respond”
Texas has been going the way of Washington and several of the liberal states and has been inclined to regulate and tax everything the last several years. And,contrary to the political rhetoric, due to overspending, the state is broke. This is only a symptom of the problem. All our rights are being taken away one by one. Liberty and free markets seem to be a thing of ancient history all of a sudden. Get a rope!!!
JDW
By Joe D. Williamson on Apr 12, 2010