HR 1161: Congress mulls your right to buy wine, again

They're at it again. Last year, a bill called the "CARE" act, HR 5034, was floated around the halls of the U.S. Congress but happily died before coming to a vote. Written largely by the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the bill would have made it impossible for anyone to sue any state over liquor distribution laws. If, for instance, you found you could not buy wine online because your state's laws forbade it, and you decided to go to court about it, the CARE act would have insisted that you prove your state's distribution laws were ineffectual in general -- that they didn't help in collecting tax revenue or making distribution orderly. Naturally, that's hard to prove and entirely beside the point to a consumer who has a far different and specific complaint. It would be like suing one doctor for malpractice, but having to prove that your state's malpractice laws in general do nothing. 

The purpose of the proposed legislation, of course, was to cut out the courts from the arena where wholesalers, retailers, and consumers battle for access to wine. The nice wholesalers would very much prefer that you buy all your liquor from your local retail stores, where it's their business to supply it; when you go behind their backs and shop elsewhere, online especially, they earn none of your dollars. The way to stop this is to turn to the state governments, and manipulate little-known and multifarious state laws via the sponsorship of state representatives who like campaign contributions and who don't have terribly thirsty constituents to pester them about access to craft beers or internet wine clubs. In order to clear the field, however, and leave beer wholesalers and state representatives alone to coo, the courts and the U.S. Congress have to be got out of the way. (We don't want Washington D.C. telling Podunk, Iowa, "you've got to let Iowans buy unusual booze if they like it.") This is why HR 5034 -- floated in the U.S. Congress, mind you -- not only would have made lawsuits impossible, but also decreed that the U.S. Congress itself would never again permit itself to interfere in state liquor distribution issues.

Very tidy. Very brilliant. It got nowhere in the last U.S. Congress, but it's been resurrected with a new number and a new name. Now it's called HR 1161, the Community Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness act -- CARE, again -- and its sponsor is Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican. From (wait for it) nice, dry Utah. Brilliant.

Facebook: Stop HR 1161  
Congressman Jason Chaffetz
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Congress mulls your right to buy wine (2010)