Why the Cook County soda tax failed
Tim Schneider and his three Republican counterparts on the Cook County Board spent much of this year trying to convince Democratic colleagues a penny-per-ounce sweetened beverage tax would hurt their districts, to no avail.
The suburban Republicans were the minority on the 17-member board, as well as in the 9-8 vote in favor of the tax.
“I don’t think the Chicago Democratic commissioners thought they were actually going to lose money” as shoppers went elsewhere and businesses felt the pinch, Schneider, of Bartlett, said.
Then the American Beverage Association’s Can the Tax Coalition stepped in, seeking to make Cook County “ground zero” against expansion of soft drink taxes around the nation, Schneider said.
On Wednesday, a 15-2 vote to repeal the tax on Dec. 1 was a historic synthesis of efforts by the beverage and restaurant industries, Republican commissioners and a few unlikely political allies.