Capitol offices are still smoker-friendly

Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Las Vegas residents may be accustomed to having smokers light up in casinos and nightclubs, but there are certain places where even maverick Nevadans might think twice about taking a puff.

Such as the Capitol.

Although the District of Columbia decided to go smoke-free this year - banning cigarettes from restaurants and workplaces in April, and outlawing them in bars effective Jan. 1 - Congress still makes the rules for the Capitol buildings.

Smoking is still allowed in some congressional offices and public spaces around Capitol Hill, although smoking on the floor of the House and Senate is forbidden.

"It's relatively simple," said Susan Irby, a spokeswoman for Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. "Individual Senate offices control their space. It's open to the discretion of each senator for their own personal offices, and leadership offices as well, to set their smoking policy."

Smokers also can be found in some congressional cafeterias as well as the House speaker's lobby, an area just off the House floor where members, staff and the press congregate during votes.

That has some nonsmokers upset.

"It's insane that anybody who works in the Capitol has to breathe carcinogens as a condition of working there," said Angela Bradbery, co-founder of Smokefree DC, the group that launched the campaign that led to the Washington City Council's approval of the ban. "You shouldn't have to be jeopardizing your health to work in the Capitol or anywhere else."

Apparently, some congressmen agree.

Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Marty Meehan, D-Mass., have been circulating a letter asking colleagues to join them in asking House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to change the rules.

"We believe that it's time for the House leadership to stop ignoring the evidence and start clearing the air," the congressmen wrote. "Under the current policy set by the House leadership, smoking continues in certain areas of House buildings ... This means that the Capitol Complex will soon be one of the only places in the District of Columbia where visitors and employees are not safe from secondhand smoke."

Nevada's lawmakers, however, are hesitant to embrace a ban.

Reps. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., are both nonsmokers who do not allow smoking in their offices. A spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., did not return phone calls for comment.

"Congressman Porter believes it's at each individual member's discretion to allow smoking in their office or if they want to smoke in those individual areas," spokesman T.J. Crawford said.

Berkley takes a similar approach.

"The congresswoman feels like we should be able to find some common ground here where we can accommodate those who smoke and those who do not," spokesman David Cherry said.

"Certainly, coming from Nevada, she's aware that people have personal freedoms and feels that adults should be allowed to make decisions for themselves."

A spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he does not allow smoking in his offices but has never mentioned any discomfort with smoking colleagues. A spokesman for Republican Sen. John Ensign declined to comment.

Congressional smoking rules have surged and waned over the years, according to historians.

The Senate banned smoking on the Senate floor in 1914 in deference to Sen. Ben Tillman, D-S.C., who had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, Assistant Senate Historian Betty Koed said.

But the smoking ban for Senate hallways and other public spaces did not go on the books until after Democratic Sen. Wendell Ford of Kentucky, who, coming from a tobacco-growing state, opposed the restriction, left office in 1999, the historian's office said.

That came only a few years after the Republicans' 1994 Contract With America included a provision that required Congress to follow the same laws that it passed. About the same time, President Bill Clinton banned smoking in most federal buildings.

Don Ritchie, associate Senate historian, notes that the second-floor columns of the Senate majority leader's offices in the Capitol are decorated with tobacco leaves. "It was the cash crop that enabled them to build the building," he said. "But you can't light up any more."

Except in some places.

A spokeswoman for Hastert declined to comment on the House policies.

Irby said she doubts that a smoking ban on individual offices would gain support on the Senate side.

"I don't think anyone would tell another senator what they could or could not do as policy in their own offices," she said. "You could go down a slippery slope there if you start policing. Usually senators respect their fellow senators being able to administer their own offices."