By Elizabeth Tansing, Director of State Government Relations, Food Marketing Institute
According to the Pew Research Center, voter turnout regularly drops in midterm elections, and has done so since the 1840s. However, a recent visit back home to Tennessee by a colleague of mine tells a different story.
Even though both incumbents U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R) and Governor Bill Haslam (R) are expected to win handily and there are no contentious congressional races in Tennessee this year, my colleague returned to Washington talking about the excitement surrounding the elections. It turns out that Tennessee residents in 78 municipalities are eager to cast their vote on local ballot referendums to allow retail food stores to sell wine.
If approved this November, grocers could start selling wine as early as July 1, 2016. And legislation enacted in Tennessee this past March will allow those eligible municipalities who didn’t collect enough petition signatures to qualify for a referendum this year, to have repeated attempts to place the issue on their ballot in future elections.
At the core of the campaign is the Red, White and Food website– hosted by FMI and managed by the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association and their coalition of more than 30,000 Tennesseans who want the right to purchase wine at retail food stores. In this final stage, the campaign’s sole focus is educating supporters in these municipalities to vote for wine when they see the question at the end of their ballot. Kudos to FMI members operating in Tennessee, led by FMI Board Member Steve Smith (President and CEO of K-VAT/Food City), who have spent their time educating voters on the Red, White and Food campaign.
The campaign logo - which shows a glass of red wine beside a glass of white wine, followed by a fork, all sprouting above a banner declaring “RED WHITE AND FOOD” - has become as well-known as the issue itself. Just imagine being able to purchase wine in the same location where you are buying groceries for dinner. Given the excitement surrounding the elections, many constituents are imagining it, too.