HR 5034 and Congress

The United States is coming out of its worst recession in more than 50 years, the unemployment rate is near 10 percent, and more Americans are living in poverty today than at any time since 1994. We're fighting a war in Afghanistan, we have to clean up the BP oil spill mess in the Gulf of Mexico, and our infrastructure -- roads, bridges and the like -- is literally collapsing.

So what's the Congress doing about all of this? Holding hearings on HR 5034, the bill to tighten the three-tier distribution system. They should be ashamed of themselves. More, after the jump:

My feelings about HR 5034 are ambivalent. I don't see it as the end of the small family winery, and its effect on direct shipping has been exaggerated by its opponents. Direct shipping, after all, remains a tiny, tiny portion of the wine business, and it mostly goes to high-end consumers. On the other hand, it's difficult to feel sorry for the country's wine distributors, who have a Constitutionally-protected monopoly that the Supreme Court has barely chipped away at. That the distributors are running around proclaiming the end of time if the bill doesn't pass is more than a bit silly.

The real bad guys in all this? The House of Representatives, and specifically the Judiciary Committee, which has scheduled a hearing on HR 5034 next week. The Republic is in crisis, and chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) and ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) are going to waste taxpayer money -- which we don't have -- on a hearing for legislation that will make absolutely no difference in the lives of the vast majority of Americans. As has been noted here many times before, the average American drinks about one bottle of wine a month, and 40 percent of us don't drink at all.

I am not naive. I have been writing about politics for 30 years, and I know how the system works. The distributors pay, and so Congress listens. But that doesn't mean it's right and it certainly doesn't mean it's good government. At some point, the people we elect must exercise the keen judgment that they keep telling us that they have. Their job is to govern, not to raise money to get re-elected. That they have not exercised that judgment with HR 5034, which is irrelevant to all but a few of the rich and powerful, is inexcusable.

The Congress has not yet passed a food safety bill, despite almost a decade of deaths and illnesses from contaminated green onions, spinach and most recently eggs. But they can find the time and money to hold a hearing on HR 5034. How is this morally justifiable? Is it any wonder that the public considers members of Congress to be less ethical than used car salesmen?

Comments

[David]

Wow...
Spot on analysis...
While Rome burns, our Neros fiddle...

It astounds me how once the interstate wine shipping shackles were loosed, the Distributors started opening their wallets and some of our "leaders" came running like a feline to some premium catnip....

The best leadership money can buy...

[Keith]

In an even more blatant piece of pandering to the wholesalers, wine retailers have been completely excluded from the so-called public, so-called information gathering hearing that Representative Conyers is holding on this bill. Our process is corrupt and broken. Is it any wonder that the public is ready to throw all the bums out?

[Dennis]

Dear WC

"I don't see it as the end of the small family winery, and its effect on direct shipping has been exaggerated by its opponents"

You have not read some of the legal analysis by those much smarter than I, nor looked at the history of the efforts by those opposed to direct shipment to understand the effects of this legislation. What has been overlooked is the opinions of the Federal Trade Commission on the topic, as they tend to be the experts in this region. To think that the Beer Wholesalers woke up one morning concerned about states rights is naive, to say the least. Could I suggest you should be questioning why and who is introducing this legislation, and look a step or two ahead for why.

[Jeff Siegel]

It's quite a treat to know that you read the blog, Dennis, and I appreciate it very much. I actually interviewed you once, I think, for a trade magazine piece about the price of corks. If you are ever in Dallas, I'll share some Texas wine with you. I believe you know McPherson.

If you follow the links to the other HR 5034 posts on the blog, you'll see that I have always had an inkling about what the wholesalers have had up their sleeves. I was writing about this stuff 15 years ago, even before Granholm, in the days of Virtual Vineyard.

This bill, as noted, is part of the wholesaler offensive to retake ground lost in Granholm. They want to make sure that the states have the final word in distribution because they have even more clout with state legislatures than they do with the Congress -- as they showed in Maryland this year.

Having said that, I still don't think that well-run family wineries like yours, are in imminent danger. If nothing else, HR 5034 raises constitutional issues that would need to be addressed.

Besides, and please don't overlook this point, the post takes Congress to task for wasting their time with this issue when, as David noted in his comment, the Republic is burning.