The Intercept - The Monopolist In The House: Rep. David Trone's Wine Company Seeks To Overturn a Constitutional Amendment

Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan is quoted in The Intercept by David Dayen arguing that opinions about alcohol market regulation are besides the point; in plain fact, states have been empowered with oversight over alcohol.

“You could view Tennessee’s residency requirement as protectionism to prevent outside companies from doing business in the state. After all, it’s not like Tennesseans, in the home of Jack Daniels whiskey, are forced to do without liquor; they’re just restricted from purchasing from out-of-state sellers.

But Sandeep Vaheesan of the Open Markets Institute argues that opinions about the regulation are besides the point; in plain fact, states have been empowered with oversight over alcohol. The 21st Amendment “sought to ensure that alcohol would still be subject to close public oversight and gave this power to the states to structure markets for alcohol in accordance with local preferences,” Vaheesan and John Laughlin Carter write in an amicus brief to the court.

Vaheesan and Carter believe that the 2005 ruling “violated the plain language of the Twenty-First Amendment” and worry about the broader degradation of states’ ability to regulate alcohol, particularly based on a judge’s prerogative to deem a regulation protectionist. “States should have the authority to structure commerce in alcohol to promote a range of public ends, including but not limited to the protection of public health, the promotion of the responsible use of alcohol, and the maintenance of decentralized markets with many distributors and producers of alcohol,” they write.”

Read the full article on The Intercept here.