The hapless Canadians’ ire over the stupid “Buy American” movement in the US reminded me of an amusing brief trade-war saber-rattling between Texas and Louisiana back in 1991. The story is reported in Call It Voodoo, but Texas Surrenders in Beer Battle. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission banned Louisiana’s Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager Beer earlier that year “because, they said, its name and label, which shows a swamp, conjure images of witchcraft and the occult.” In retaliation, “the Louisiana House passed a resolution banning the sale of Lone Star Beer”. Finally, “faced with legal questions, a retaliatory ban on a Texas beer and widespread ridicule, the regulators changed their minds” and revoked the ban. But not without a harumph: Dixie’s owner said at first she thought it was a joke–but a Texas bureaucrat opined: “A lot of people think we were being silly, but we still feel like the voodoo connotation is not in good taste and not in the public interest,” and another one intoned that the prohibition “has to do with your cults and public safety areas. … “We have to keep an eye on a lot of things like that.”
I remember the issue because I was then a senior in law school, and this example was used to illustrate the effects of the interstate commerce clause. If I recall, the question was whether Louisiana’s retaliation was constitutional–if I remember, even though it was in response to an unconstitutional action by Texas, Louisiana’s action was still itself unconstitutional–both were unconstitutional burdens on interstate commerce–protectionism of a sort. Louisiana’s action here reminded me of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ endorsement of “a controversial proposal to support communities that refuse to buy products from countries that put trade restrictions on products and services from Canada.”
I doubt the ban hurt Dixie–I remember looking for it after this incident.
[Cross-posted at LRC]
