California Dems pained to find names on tobacco list

Sen. Leland Yee is running for mayor in San Francisco, and the last thing he needs is to be labeled as the Big Tobacco candidate.
So Yee found it especially irksome to find himself on a list of legislators who have taken money from tobacco interests. A report by the American Lung Association in California showed Yee as taking $4,300 from tobacco interests -- $3,300 of which came from Philip Morris, the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer.
But, Yee said he returned that money to Philip Morris immediately and demanded a correction from the anti-smoking organization. After the group found that Philip Morris' parent company, Altria, had deleted the contribution in amended statements, Yee received a correction and apology.
"With that, we have removed this contribution from our database and have updated all relevant documents," Paul Knepprath, vice president of Advocacy & Health Initiatives for the American Lung Association wrote in a letter to Yee on Friday. "I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
Still, Yee had one other tobacco donation to answer for: $1,000 from the California Distributors Association. He said he didn't agree that the distributors' group is a tobacco interest, though donors to its political action committee are largely tobacco manufacturers such as Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.