Mitola, MI

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<h4>Opposing the federal RICO lawsuit against the tobacco industry</h4>

<p id="p-34">President Clinton announced in his 1999 State of the Union address that the DOJ was planning a case against the tobacco industry to recover smoking-induced Medicare funds under the RICO Act.<a id="xref-ref-70-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-70">70</a> In February 1999, Philip Morris's vice president of federal government affairs outlined three strategic goals for fighting the lawsuit: (1) to fight the US$20 million dollar appropriation for the lawsuit; (2) ‘bar consideration or defeat any legislation that enhances the ability of the DOJ to successfully bring a cause of action against the tobacco industry;’ (3) exert ‘political pressure’ to block filing of the lawsuit.<a id="xref-ref-71-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-71">71</a>

CSE supported these goals during 1999 (see online supplementary table S4). CSE president Paul Beckner wrote to senate majority leader <font color="#FF0000">Trent Lott (R, MS) and house speaker Dennis Hastert</font> (R, IL), ‘On behalf of our 250 000 grassroots members, I urge you to oppose the federal government's proposed lawsuit as well as any legislation to facilitate this unprecedented action.’<a id="xref-ref-72-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-72">72</a> CSE members and staff contacted policymakers,<a id="xref-ref-73-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-73">73</a> drafted commentaries,<a id="xref-ref-73-2" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-73">73</a> <span class="xref-sep">,</span><a id="xref-ref-74-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-74">74</a> aired ads<a id="xref-ref-75-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-75">75</a> <span class="xref-sep">,</span><a id="xref-ref-76-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-76">76</a> and sent out action alerts against the case.<a id="xref-ref-73-3" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-73">73</a> (see online supplementary table S4)</p>

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On 22 July 1999 Congress rejected DOJ's appropriation request.<a id="xref-ref-70-2" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-70">70</a> (The lawsuit was then funded by the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs.) The industry and its third-party allies failed to stop the lawsuit, which the DOJ filed on 22 September 1999.<a id="xref-ref-70-3" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-70">70</a> The next day, CSE's<font color="#FF0000"> Michele Isele Mitola was quoted in the <em>Washington Times</em>: </font>‘We see this as a political ploy to find ways to raise more revenue to fund their [the government's] tax-and-spend agenda.’<a id="xref-ref-77-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-77">77</a> CSE continued opposition until at least 2002, encouraging supporters to ask newly elected President George W Bush to end the lawsuit.<a id="xref-ref-78-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-78">78</a> These efforts failed, with federal judge Gladys Kessler ruling in 2006 that the major cigarette companies and their affiliated organisations constituted a continuing racketeering enterprise to defraud the public.<a id="xref-ref-79-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-79">79</a></p>

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<h4>Opposing tobacco taxes</h4>

<p id="p-37">CSE opposed state tobacco taxes (see online supplementary table S4). For example, in 1996, the <font color="#FF0000">Tobacco Institute </font>(then the tobacco companies’ political and lobbying arm) provided New Jersey CSE with US$40 000<a id="xref-ref-80-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-80">80</a> to fight a tobacco tax increase using mailings, radio advertisements and patch through calls.<a id="xref-ref-81-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-81">81</a> <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Ramhurst representative recruited industry allies including the New Jersey CSE president, New Jersey smokers’ rights group president and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, to write opinion editorials opposing the tax.<a id="xref-ref-82-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-82">82</a></span>

CSE opposed national-level tobacco taxes including a 1999 proposed US$0.55 increase.<a id="xref-ref-83-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-83">83</a> CSE's Michele Isele Mitola sent a copy of CSE's anti-tobacco tax mailer materials to Beverly McKittrick (Philip Morris's director of federal policy, tobacco and legislative counsel and Washington relations) for review. The mailer contained CSE materials, including one-pagers entitled, ‘Big Government/Tobacco Tax’ and ‘Extinguishing Tobacco Taxes.’<a id="xref-ref-84-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-84">84</a>

There was also crossover in employment between CSE and the tobacco companies (see online supplementary table S2). For example, <b>Michele Isele Mitola left CSE, where she had held several positions throughout the 1990s, to work at Philip Morris.</b><a id="xref-ref-85-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-85"><b>85</b></a><b> As of 2012, she was vice president, public affairs at Forum Strategies and Communications, a communication and outreach firm; all four leaders of Forum Strategies had worked at Altria/Philip Morris.</b><a id="xref-ref-86-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-86"><b>86–89</b></a></p>

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<div align="left"><span class="style4">Michele Mitola</span></div>

<div align="left">Vice President, Public Affairs</div>

<p align="left">Michele Mitola is a public affairs and communications professional with over 20 years of experience working on issue advocacy campaigns at the federal, state and local levels.</p>

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Mrs. Mitola began her career in the New York State Senate in Albany and went on to spend over ten years working in Washington, DC for the U.S. Department of Labor, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and at <b>Citizens for a Sound Economy</b>, a leading grassroots advocacy organization, where she led successful issue advocacy campaigns on health care, tax, telecommunications and other economic policy and regulatory issues. Mrs. Mitola has <b>lobbied and testified </b>on policy issues, as well as submitted legal briefs and regulatory comments, before the courts, regulatory agencies, and on Capitol Hill, as well as in state capitals and before local town bodies across the nation. She also is an attorney and has been admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.</p>

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Prior to joining FSC, Mrs. Mitola served as a senior manager for issues management and public affairs at <b>Philip Morris USA,</b> where she was responsible for managing a network of public affairs professionals in all fifty states and for working with the company's senior management and government affairs professionals to develop policy positions and strategies for impacting the public policy issues facing the company.

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