Beverage Company Attempt to Buy Berkeley Election Violates Sign Law

Beginning in the week of October 20, 2014, advertising went up on all allowable walls and floor space in the Ashby BART Station urging voters to vote "no" on Measure D. Every square inch of advertising space and more wall space that was never intended for advertising was covered with huge ads designed to sow doubts in voters' minds about the "soda tax". Every one of 16 advertisement boards at the rail platform level had also been purchased by the "No on D" campaign.

Measure D would enact a Berkeley city tax of $0.01 per ounce on most drinks containing added caloric sugar.

By Wednesday, October 22, wrap-around ads covering below-ground structural columns of the Ed Roberts Campus were partially torn off by Berkeley residents outraged at the overwhelming power of outside corporate money in a local election.

By Saturday morning, new posters for the "No on D" campaign had been taped to every city lamp post and utility pole around the Ashby BART Station on both sides of Adeline Street, Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, and Ashby Avenue. One Berkeley resident after another gradually removed the posters, indicating a widespread backlash against corporate money in what should be a democratic process among Berkeley voters. By Sunday evening, nearly every one of the scores of "No on D" posters had been completely or partially removed.

Each poster, bearing the name of the American Beverage Association, was posted in violation of the Berkeley Sign Ordinance No. 4291-NS, Section 4.1, which states: "No sign, poster, placard, card, sticker, banner or other device calculated to attract attention of the public shall be posted, printed, stamped, stuck or otherwise affixed to or upon any public sidewalk, crosswalk, curb, lamp post, hydrant, tree, utility pole, ..."

Temporary election signs are allowed by Section 4.7 on private property.

This makes the American Beverage Association liable to being fined for violating the Berkeley Sign Ordinance.

The North Berkeley BART Station was also targeted by huge "No on D" ads, but because of the lack of assigned advertising space on walls, the above-ground part of the station had only two giant floor ads.

There were no such ads in the Berkeley BART Station only because other advertising contracts had already been signed.

In advertizing mailers sent to Berkeley registered voters, the No on D campaign admits to spending $1.4 million on the Berkeley election, mostly funded by the American Beverage Association. While the ABA labels itself for this election as a "California PAC", the American Beverage Association itself is based in Washington, DC for the primary purpose of lobbying Congress.

Measure D proponents say that unofficially No on D spending will hit $1.7 million for Berkeley's approximately 81,000 registered voters, or nearly $21 per potential vote.

The election battle over the soda tax, also being fought in San Francisco as Measure E, is so important to the sweetened beverage industry because successful passage of soda taxes in the Bay Area could set precedents that will be felt across the country and eventually around the world.

Measure D in Berkeley and Measure E in San Francisco further illustrate the overwhelming power of corporate money in subverting democracy after the Citizens United ruling. The significance of the votes on these measures are not merely about taxing artificially-sweetened sodas, but about unlimited corporate money buying elections and subverting democracy in the United States. They remind us of the imperative to amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish "corporate personhood" once and for all.