The Country Lawyer

A very good friend of mine, Dr. Allen Dale (“Ole”) Olson a/k/a the “Pontiff of Palate”, recently contacted Indiana’s Ninth District Congressman Baron Hill to assess his position with respect to HR 1034, a bill seeing a stealthy advance through Congress with the assistance of money provided by wine wholesaler lobbyists.  One ought to be skittish indeed about a bill that calls itself the “Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act of 2010” with the acronym “CARE”.  Kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, doesn’t it? 

Now, I must say, the Pontiff is an unrepentant Democrat, who still has an Obama sticker clinging to the bumper of his Volvo.  He certainly does not approach the Baron (also a Democrat) with any predisposition for hostility.     

The Pontiff, by the way, is the guy who’s been hosting our wine dinners here at the Story Inn for a decade, and edits the state’s premiere wine website: www.hoosierwinecellar.com.  Notwithstanding his lack of political acumen, the Pontiff knows more about the grape than any man alive.  And if there is one thing the Pontiff is passionate about, it is the proletariat’s access to a decent glass of the stuff. 

Wine drinkers do love to whine.  Prohibition ended in 1933, with the enactment of the 21^st Amendment to the United States Constitution.  After fourteen interminable years, hooch was legal again, and states were given the authority to regulate it. 

Some states, such as California, opted for relatively free and open markets.  It is no coincidence that California has seen the growth of numerous world-class wineries since then.  Other states, such as Indiana, opted for something called the “three tier” system. 

The three “tiers” are: (1) the producers, (2) the wholesalers and (3) the retailers.  Imagine a pipeline with a serious pinch in the middle (more vividly still, imagine an infected colon).  Consumers (sometimes called the missing “fourth tier”) are just beyond the sphincter, to be dumped upon. 

In this pipeline, as in your digestive tract, all business passes through the middlemen.  Producers must sell exclusively to, and the retailers must buy exclusively from, the wholesalers.  The wholesalers thus effectively decide what the rest of us may drink.  The easy money to be made from this contrivance has fostered the growth of crony capitalism, instead of wineries.   

The wholesalers blatantly carve up markets and territories, and decide which products may reach the market, and which products may not.  Wineries, blocked from direct access to the market, live or perish at the whim of the wholesalers.  Retailers, meanwhile, must buy what the wholesalers offer—or buy nothing at all.  Consumers are just plain screwed.         

This system is, of course, a criminal enterprise.  Such behavior is specifically outlawed by the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts, but for one notable dispensation: under the 21^st Amendment, the regulation of alcohol is granted to the states, and the Constitution trumps even federal law.  Thus, wine may be legally monopolized, but grape juice may not.  

It is a sad fact that, were it not for the action of yeast upon sugar, our wholesalers would all be wearing prison stripes and playing girlfriend to some guy named “Bubba”.   

In Indiana, as in other benighted “three tier” states, it is frustratingly difficult to get a decent bottle of wine.  Wine lists at upscale Hoosier restaurants look pretty much the same.  Somewhere around 95% of the nation’s wineries are excluded from the Hoosier market, such producers (regardless of the quality of their product) being too small to be worth the trouble for the wholesalers to carry.

You would think that the wholesalers wouldn’t be much disturbed if consumers were to buy wine direct from boutique wineries in Napa or Willamette Valleys, or an occasional retailer (like me) were to step outside the pipeline to buy direct, particularly since the wholesalers refuse to go through the effort to fetch it themselves.  Amazingly, the wholesalers have fought tooth and nail to oppose direct shipping of wine, even tiny quantities of it.  Their message is unambiguous: buy it from us, or don’t buy it at all. 

The professed reason for the wholesalers’ recalcitrance on this point is disingenuous.  The wholesalers claim that Hoosier teens might be tempted to order a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape online with daddy’s purloined credit card, willing to delay gratification for 3-4 weeks until delivery.  Never mind that California, which is six times larger than Indiana and has allowed direct shipping since the Internet came of age, has not seen this predicted bacchanalian meltdown.  Obviously, Hoosier teens are in greater need of nanny state supervision than their California peers.         

The wholesalers do pay dearly for their state-sanctioned monopoly.  Each year, their lobbyists dole out “campaign contributions” on an unprecedented scale.  Members of the Indiana legislature find it hard to escape their generosity.  The sordid facts are there for all to see online (albeit with a two-year delay) at www.followthemoney.org and at www.opensecrets.org.  

This shrewd dispensing of campaign contributions to key lawmakers is but another cost of doing business here in Indiana, which the wholesalers pass on down the pipeline with no apparent regrets.  Thus, we Hoosiers pay inflated prices for a dismal selection of wine, and risk jail time if we would be so presumptuous as to order it online, as Californians routinely do.         

CARE, of course, doesn’t ban the stuff outright.  This is no return to the dark days of Prohibition.  But it does clean up some nettlesome matters which stand in the way of wholesalers and their profits.  Nettlesome things like the U.S. Constitution. 

Back in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, in a battle between the Commerce Clause and the 21^st Amendment, the Commerce Clause wins.  Granholm v. Heald.  Thus, if states are going to regulate alcohol, they must treat in-state and out-of-state wineries equally.  The market must be open to all, or closed to all.  Gone were the days when state legislatures could grant domestic wineries direct access to the local market, but compel out-of-state wineries to marry a wholesaler as a precondition of entering the local market (which was precisely the situation that existed in Indiana before the Granholm decision).    

Hoosier oenophiles cheered this ruling, expecting the dawn of a new day of relatively free markets in this commodity.  But the Champagne went flat very quickly. 

In 2006, the wholesalers proposed a change in Indiana’s liquor law which would require Hoosier vintners to labor under the same onerous conditions imposed upon their out-of-state brethren.  To assure its passage, the wholesalers lavished our legislators with at least $660,000 in “campaign contributions”.  Despite the local wineries’ protests, and some punishing editorials in the Indianapolis Star and elsewhere, it was enough money to persuade the legislature to see things their way. 

I call this sausage-making endeavor the “Bitch Winery Act of 2006”, in which the wholesalers effectively told Hoosier wineries “You’re our bitches now, and you’re working for us”.  Several of Indiana’s smaller family-owned wineries folded as a consequence–too small to serve as anyone’s bitches.      

Thus emboldened by their victory, it must then have occurred to the wholesalers that they should try to pull this off at the national level, too.  And what better time to do it than in an election year?  Ergo, CARE. 

Back to the main thread.

Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District, over which Baron Hill presides, contains 28 of Indiana’s 42 wineries.  If Indiana can be said to have a “wine country”, it is here.  All of these wineries need access to the market in order to survive.  Every last one of them opposes CARE, for reasons I have already made obvious. 

One would think that the Baron would be championing the interests of his own constituents, and be on record early as opposing CARE.   Regrettably, he is not.  Could the Baron’s judgment possibly have been influenced by the fact that alcohol wholesalers are already among his top contributors?  http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00003875&cycle=2008&type=I&newMem=N&recs=100

Moreover, the Pontiff was not able to elicit anything more than the following mealy-mouthed response from the Baron’s office in reply to his simple, direct question: “Where do you stand on this?”               

“As you may know, H.R. 5034 would clarify that it is the policy of Congress that each state or territory shall continue to have the primary authority to regulate alcoholic beverages.  The bill would also prohibit certain types of discrimination against out-of-state producers of alcoholic beverages in favor of in-state producers.  Further, the legislation would make it tougher to challenge the authority of states to regulate alcoholic beverages.  In addition, the CARE Act would eliminate the current requirement that states give regulatory parity in importation to in-state produced and out-of-state produced alcoholic beverages.”

Gee, if I were the suspicious type, I would say the Baron has quoted from the wholesaler playbook, and has already sold his constituents down the Ohio River. 

We won’t know for sure where the Baron really stands until we get a look at the Baron’s campaign finance disclosures two years from now, at which point the genie will obviously be out of the bottle.  But in the light of this response, the Pontiff and I are betting that political expedience will once again carry the day.     

Rick Hofstetter, Country Lawyer

According to the United States Postal Service, the volume of mail delivered in 2009 suffered its steepest decline since the Great Depression, a drop of ten billion pieces from the previous year.  Pundits are blaming the Internet which is, unlike the Post Office, cheap, reliable and efficient.  But I say, not to worry.  The drop is only temporary, because the election season is upon us! 

Though the general election is still months away, political mailers have begun to arrive in my rural mailbox almost on a daily basis.  Tragically, they are usually printed on paper too thick, or too course, to effectively serve for personal hygiene.  Thus, on most occasions, I must resort to re-deploying them as packing materials, an activity which, mercifully, allows me to burnish my green credentials while saving money, and to palm the disposal conundrum onto someone else.      

These days, it seems that a whole lot of people seem to know a whole lot about me.  My banker, accountant and lawyer do, for sure.  So does the IRS, the phone company, various utilities, several creditors, two ex-wives and at least three different credit reporting agencies. 

The Census Bureau is a notable exception.  For reasons which still mystify me, I have escaped their decennial scrutiny.  (Maybe one of the many recent hires/fires/re-hires from the Census Bureau will read this blog, in which case, I want them to know that I’m ready, willing and able to fill out their form, for I do not desire to become yet another undocumented white person.) 

Back to the main thread. 

Given the cost of direct mailings these days, and the information that is generally available about me, I must assume that these political missives have been directed to me for a very good reason.  No matter how much I pay each year in tax, I have but one vote, the same as everyone else.  Obviously, I don’t count for much in the vote category. 

So, this far from the election, what could it be that these aspiring politicians may want from me?  Could it be, perhaps, MONEY?  I hate to be so cynical, but my suspicions are routinely confirmed: almost all such mailings claim that Armageddon will occur if I do not send them a check, stat. 

That is why one recent political mailing caught my eye. 

The paper bromide in question was a handsome tri-fold sent to me by Indiana’s Ninth District Congressman Baron Hill, bearing the following disclosure, on the last page (in very small type): “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.” 

Gee.  The government is running a deficit exceeding 10% of GNP.  Of every dollar the government spends these days, about 40 cents is borrowed from our children, or from our political soul-mates, the Chinese and the Saudis.  So logically, with money being so tight, it must really be important. 

So I read further.  Nowhere in that publication did the Baron seek money.  NO MONEY?  Now he really had my attention.  This must be a matter of national significance.

So I read further.  The Baron’s taxpayer-paid message was plain: he was “Working to restore fiscal responsibility”.  He was “Fighting to cut government spending and balance the budget” working at “Cutting waste and fraud” and “”Helping small business”. 

Gee.  Was this the same guy who just voted for the pork and earmark-laden $1 trillion “stimulus package”, for the $800 billion bailout of corrupt financial institutions, for the (who-knows what cost) nationalization of health care, and the bill to raise the federal debt ceiling to pay for it all?  Was this the same guy who voted to install Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, who’s referred to Tea Party activists as “political terrorists”, and who brought White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Bloomington for a fundraiser?   

There are three possible explanations for the incongruity between the Baron’s words and the Baron’s deeds: Either the Baron is (a) is non compos mentis, (b) has had an epiphany, and has changed his ways, or (c) is using our own money to deceive us.  Personally, I don’t think Baron Hill is crazy, or has mended his ways.        

I’ve got lots of company.  According to a recent CNN poll, only one of four Americans actually trusts the government.  Only one in four think Congress is doing a good job, too.  Could it possibly be that the public is too smart to be bamboozled by such transparent fabrications?  One can only hope.        

 Adolph Hitler is commonly credited with the venerable propaganda technique known as the “Big Lie” (Grosse Luege), which he described in his 1925 book Mein Kampf as a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”.  Joseph Goebbels put the theory to test in the years that followed, with considerable success.  Evidently, having worked in Berlin, and then Chicago, Baron Hill’s office assumes it’ll work in Southern Indiana as well.  

 Let’s just hope that the Baron’s whopper will not be perceived as being too big. 

 Rick Hofstetter, Country Lawyer

Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District covers 6,600 square miles in the south-eastern part of the Hoosier state, an area roughly the size of Connecticut.  The District includes Bloomington, Indiana’s third largest city and the home of Indiana University, a number of smaller towns like New Albany, Seymour and Jeffersonville, some exotic-sounding places like Gnaw Bone, Bean Blossom and French Lick, and, of course, the rural hamlet of Story (which I happen to own).  The District is 95% white, 99% native born, and very conservative.

Democrat Baron Hill holds the seat currently, but given his recent voting record on health care and his cozy relationship with our increasingly unpopular president, it is more likely than not that he will be polishing his resume after the general election this November.

Three candidates are seeking the Republican Party’s nomination: Todd Young, Mike Sodrel, and Travis Hankins.  Only one of them will challenge Hill in November.  I happen to know the first two of the candidates quite well, and have met the third (Hankins) under circumstances which convince me that I already know all that I need to know about him.

Like Sergio Leone’s 1966 spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, the candidates could be described, respectively, as the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I offer my observations of each in the hope of providing some much-needed guidance to Ninth District voters who pull a Republican ballot at the May 4 Primary.

Todd Young: The Good.  The very first time I met Todd, I spent three hours in amiable conversation with him, and observed him open up like a glass of fine red wine.  This is a man with an acute intellect and impressive academic credentials (BS in Political Science, Naval Academy; MBA, University of Chicago; JD, Indiana University).  Though he is a political neophyte, his personal and professional achievements belie his 38 years.

Todd does not need to be tutored in the fundamentals of economics.  He is convinced that Washington’s spending is unsustainable, and fixing the nation’s balance sheet and income statement will be his highest priority in office.

Todd is a nice guy, in sharp contrast to Baron Hill.  Prying the Baron away from the levers of power will be a challenge akin to depriving an alcoholic of his drink, so Todd will certainly endure some sharp elbows this fall.  Todd’s training as a Marine and a Prosecutor might put him up to the task.  We’ll see.

I am always suspicious when someone so obviously qualified for office actually makes the effort to seek it.  Todd could do much better for himself, his wife and (now) four children by staying his current career path.  Since Todd is not a man who seeks power with a clintonian obsession, I suspect that he’ll retire for good from the public forum if his bid for Congress is unsuccessful this year.  That would be a real loss for us all.

Mike Sodrel: The Bad.  Sodrel is a 65 year-old truck driver who is making his fifth consecutive run against Baron Hill.  Einstein once defined “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  Whether Sodrel is insane is open to debate.  But one thing is certain: Sodrel is no Einstein.

In fact, Sodrel doesn’t even have a college degree.  He is “self-educated”.

To his credit, Sodrel has earned a degree from the school of hard knocks, having run a quasi-private business with some degree of success.  By “quasi-private”, I mean this: he has made his fortune as a private contractor hauling mail for the U.S. Postal Service.

I have had several conversations with Sodrel and his wife, Kita (including two dinners at the Story Inn, where they both declined to share a fine glass of cabernet with me).  Sodrel claims to have read the U.S. Constitution (all 4,400 words if it), and though this document specifically prohibits the establishment of a religion, he persists in viewing it as the foundation of the United States as a “Christian” nation.  Go figure.

Some months ago, I wrote a personal letter to Sodrel urging him not to run for Congress a fifth time.  The voters deserve better than another tired replay of the Sodrel-Hill battle, I reasoned.  Sodrel would not dignify my letter with a response, and promptly registered to run in the primary.  Obviously, my influence does not extend much beyond the town limits of Story, Indiana.

Sodrel then promised to debate Todd Young right here at the Story Inn.  After confirming the date with the local party Chairwoman (it was supposed to take place March 18), Sodrel reneged, citing his “busy schedule”.

At least give him credit for having the sense to know when he’s outgunned.

Travis Hankins: The Ugly. I met Travis Hankins twice on the same day at the Salt Creek Country Club in Nashville.  When I say “twice”, I mean that he greeted me a second time at the same event, and was apparently oblivious to the fact that we had been introduced just a few minutes before.

Not that we had anything substantive to say to each other, which otherwise might have jogged his memory.  He did the talking (lecturing mostly).  His message, each time, was an incoherent babble of evangelical Christian conservatism embellished with the ubiquitous “God bless you”.

I do clearly recall Hankins being flanked by two bimbos wearing tight T-shirts, a distraction for almost any man of my age.  Perhaps that is why I remembered the encounter and Hankins did not.

I further recall that Hankins, and the bimbos, were possessed of that vacuous smile that one sees among cult members.  The image of Jimmy Jones ladling out Kool-Aid comes vividly to mind.  It was creepy in the extreme.

Go to Hankins’ official website if you really want to get creeped out.  By Hankins’ own admission, his personal moment of epiphany came while watching a televangelist.   I kid you not.

Unlike Mike Sodrel, Hankins has a formal education (of sorts).  He attended Kanakuk Institute, which his website describes as “a prestigious one year bible program”.  Nothing more is said about the intellectual rigors that Hankins endured at ‘Ol Kanakuk which might have prepared him to be our Congressman at a time of economic Armageddon.

Rick Hofstetter, Country Lawyer