California cancer advocates call out Assemblymember Jim Cooper for breaking promise not to take tobacco money

A key element to winning public health legislation is to hold legislators accountable.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network here in California has been working to do just that by urging politicans to pledge not to take money from the tobacco industry since 2014.

Now California Assemblymember Jim Cooper has welched on his promise.  When pursuing his first run for state office in 2014, Cooper accepted a challenge from ACS CAN to publicly forgo campaign contributions from tobacco companies. But, on March 14, 2018, he accepted a $4,400 contribution from Philip Morris.  ACS CAN contacted him and he told ACS CAN that he decided to reverse course and start accepting donations from tobacco companies.

ACS CAN is publicising this reversal in a press release, which you can read here.  Good for them.

Cooper is the first candidate to rescind his commitment not to accept tobacco contributions in the four-year history of the “Snuff Tobacco Money Out of California Politics” campaign.