GOP Senate Candidate Took Bold Stance Against the Sale of Alcohol … in Wisconsin

Tessa Stuart
·5 min read
187

Wisconsin is famous for its booze. The brands Miller, Schlitz, Pabst, and Blatz were all founded in Milwaukee, a city whose baseball team is the Brewers, and which is often called the “beer capital of the world.” Across the state, bars outnumber grocery stores roughly three-to-one, for a total of about eight pubs per every 10,000 people. To say alcohol is an important industry in Wisconsin is to undersell the fact: It accounts for more than 161,000 jobs that pay out roughly $3.2 billion in wages a year and generates $2.6 billion in tax revenue, according to the most recent figures available from the Wisconsin Tavern Association.

All of that is why it’s surprising to hear a political candidate vying to represent the state in the U.S. Senate say it was a bad idea to commercialize alcohol. In 2017, when he was considering another run for office, Republican Eric Hovde said that, if it were up to him, alcohol would only be available to people who brew or distill it themselves. Acknowledging that it would be difficult to wind back the commercialization of alcohol, Hovde went on to say: “The horse is out of the barn, and it’s going to be hard to put back.”

Hovde, a banking executive and real estate developer, is challenging Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) for her seat this fall. The campaign is Hovde’s second bid for Senate; in 2012, he lost the GOP primary to former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, whom Baldwin later defeated in the general election.

Hovde explored a second bid for Senate in 2018, before ultimately deciding against jumping into the race. But in May 2017, when he was still mulling the possibility, he attended the Jefferson County Republican Party’s “Pints and Politics” event in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin, where he was asked about weed, according to a recording of the event shared with Rolling Stone.

“What about legalizing marijuana?” A member of the audience asks Hovde. “I’m opposed to that because I think it’s a gateway, but …”

Hovde responds: “You know what? I’m opposed to it as well, and where I am on it is this: I get the argument that marijuana is a lot less harmful than any other drug — including, arguably, alcohol — and that kids [might] try marijuana because it’s illegal, and think ‘Oh, I handled that, so I can try something harder.’ So, I get that argument from people that are pro-marijuana. … The easier solution would [be] to just decriminalize it. Don’t make it a commercial enterprise.

“I’m a libertarian in most cases — not when it comes to drugs,” he continues. “But if somebody says, ‘OK, for medical reasons or whatever, I want to grow a plant, I want to smoke it.’ Fine. But why do we want to commercialize marijuana? I don’t get that. It’s just another thing that society is going to have to bear the consequences and costs of.”

Marijuana — both medical and recreational — remains illegal in the state of Wisconsin, despite efforts to decriminalize it as recently as this legislative session. Hovde went on to suggest that cannabis should not be made into a business — adding that alcohol should never have been commercialized, either.

“So, if we just decriminalize [marijuana]? Fine. Nobody’s going to go to jail. No one’s going to get arrested for it. That’s your self-determination, but you’re not going to turn it into an enterprise. Frankly, it should have happened with alcohol,” Hovde says in the audio. “I mean look at — alcohol has a lot of negative byproducts. If somebody wanted to distill it, drink it. Fine, go ahead. But, sadly, as we know, it’s produced a lot of negative byproducts as a part of society. I don’t think adding more negative byproducts to society is a healthy thing. And saying that, I think the cat’s out of the — or, the horse is out of the barn, and it’s going to be hard to put back.”

Scott Stenger, who represents the Tavern League of Wisconsin, takes issue with Hovde’s remarks.

“You could probably make that same comment about Big Macs,” Stenger tells Rolling Stone. “I don’t think that is a very informed look at the reality of the economy — whether it’s in Wisconsin or anywhere.

“Like any anything — whether it’s hamburgers or alcohol — there’s a way that it can be enjoyed responsibly,” he adds. “To deny that it’s not a part of our economy is just not looking at the facts. It is. It’s a significant piece of our economy, and I think regulators and legislators understand that.”

Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Hovde, says the candidate still backs decriminalization of marijuana, and that he “proudly supports Wisconsin’s breweries, distilleries, and wineries.”

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Hovde’s holding company, Hovde Properties, purchased the Silver Dollar Tavern, the oldest bar in Madison, in November after a decades-spanning campaign to buy and demolish the beloved dive bar to make way for a proposed new development.

Shortly after he decided against a 2018 Senate run, Hovde, who was born and raised in Wisconsin, purchased an ocean-view manse in Laguna Beach, California — a short drive to the Irvine offices of H. Bancorp, the $2.9 billion “banking services” company where he serves as president and CEO. Wisconsin Democrats have repeatedly raised questions about Hovde’s ties to Southern California since he jumped into the race last month.

Hovde responded to the criticism by posting a video of himself sitting in a frozen lake and inviting Baldwin to join him. “Let’s really see who’s from Wisconsin,” he says in the video.

Hovde’s anti-booze comments could raise more questions about his Badger State bonafides. But Voelkel, the Hovde spokesman, doesn’t seem too worried. “Change is on tap this year, and Democrats will do anything they can to distract from the fact that Sen. Baldwin’s 25 years in Washington have been all foam and no beer.”

More from Rolling Stone

Best of Rolling Stone