On March 19, 1996, the citizens of Hamilton County, Ohio ratified a .5% sales tax increase (Issue 1) that will raise $540 million to build two new stadia in Cincinnati for use by the Bengals football and Reds baseball franchises. This study uses an interest group perspective to investigate the politics of the sales tax increase and the campaign for and against its electoral acceptance. Issue 1 fits the classic interest group dynamic: Economic benefits will be conferred on a numerically small set of actors while the costs are widely distributed among the public. Other specific factors that contributed to passage of the proposal (a million dollar public relations and media campaign, strategic decisions by county officials to make the tax increase more palatable to voters, and a public pledge by the Bengals to contribute millions of dollars to the construction costs) are examined.
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