Blowing Smoke on Capitol Hill

Just last year it was the heads of the seven American tobacco companies who marched to Washington and the Democrats who wanted them to atone.

Congress was a tougher place for smokers back then. Not only were those tobacco folk forced to stand with hands raised, like so many naughty boys caught puffing in the restroom, and defend industry practices, but Democrats were actually trying to prohibit smoking in public areas of the Capitol.

Well, the new Republican majority, particularly those in the rebellious House, have set that nonsense straight.

First off, there’ll be no more inquisitions for the tobacco industry. In fact, in the very same offices where former subcommittee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) waged his campaign against nicotine, some wily GOP staffer slipped a photo of Waxman under an ashtray. Aides could snuff out their butts right on his nose. “I guess in some cultures you drag dead soldiers through the streets one way or the other,” says Rep. Andrew Jacobs Jr. (D-Ind.), a militant anti-smoker who failed to appreciate the irony.

Indeed, Republicans have re-established nicotine as a congressional staple, with three out of the four House leaders defiant about it. And you thought “smoke-filled rooms” in Congress was just a cliche.

Seen “puffing like a steam engine” down one of the House office public hallways was Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, No. 2 man in the leadership, a smoldering Carlton Menthol 100 between fingertips.

And there’s Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, No. 3 man in the leadership, spitting a dollop of Skoll tobacco (just a pinch between cheek and gum) into the plastic cup held in his hand, right on the House floor.

Sure, anti-smoking regs established by former House Speaker Tom Foley (D-Ore.) in 1993 are still on the books. But who really cares? “Nobody is going to tell a member where not to smoke,” says ex-House historian Ray Smock.

Certainly, not one of a bevy of uniformed House police officers scolds Republican Conference Chairman John A. Boehner of Ohio, No. 4 man in the House leadership, as he strolls among them down a public corridor sucking on a lighted Barkley cigarette. “If I didn’t [like the habit], I’d have quit a long time ago,” says the congressman, smiling.

And finally, in the ornate chambers where Foley once issued his edicts against tobacco hangs the ever-present aroma of Winston cigarettes, smoke of choice for Tony Blankely, press aide to Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

“In a free society, people should be entitled to have a very broad range of liberties,” says Blankely in the clipped shadow of an English accent that has made him famous among the Capitol Hill press corps.

Putting flame to another Winston, only fractionally through his pack-a-day habit, Blankely says that his sentiment is, “I think, more than just a principle of the Republican Party, I’d like to think it’s the principle of the Democratic Party too.”

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The late cigar-chomping Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill couldn’t have phrased it better.

After all, tobacco in all its incarnations has been a proud part of Congress since the Revolution. Charles Dickens couldn’t help appreciate, when he visited the United States and toured Congress, the squishy nature of the handsomely carpeted Senate and House floors, particularly around the poorly targeted spittoons.

“I strongly recommend strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything . . . not to pick it up with an ungloved hand,” Dickens wrote in his memoirs.

It was the single greatest alleviator of partisan differences even at the most divided periods of congressional history. Wrote author Grace Greenwood in 1850: “A Whig may be seen passing his [snuff] box to a Democrat, who passes it to a Southern Ultraist, who passes it to a Northern ‘incendiary’--all three forget their sectional differences in a delightful concert of sternutation [sneezing].”

From within the columned corridor near the Rotunda, now known as Statuary Hall, vendors unabashedly hawked a variety of tobacco products to members during the Civil War, before reform-minded members thought better of it.

Inevitable change was under way.

“A majority of the senators--a large majority at that--are smokers; and, unfortunately, a pernicious habit has so mastered them that they are nervous and miserable when they do not get the nicotine poison which soothes their nerves,” argued the former Confederate, South Carolina Sen. Benjamin R. (Pitchfork Ben) Tillman during a floor debate on smoking in 1914.

“As soon as the doors are closed for executive session, they light their cigars and puff away and the chamber soon has the appearance of a beer garden,” he said.

Some argued feebly in its defense. But smoking on the Senate floor was to be banished, with only storied symbols of tobacco remaining.

Two tiny leather snuffboxes, with painted Japanese figures on their chipped lids, still sit on wall niches on either side of the vice president’s desk. The sergeant-at-arms keeps them stocked with fresh powdered tobacco, but of course no one actually snorts it any more. Some senators don’t even know they are there.

And spittoons are kept polished and positioned on the Senate floor, although they haven’t been squirted at since Nevada Democrat Howard Cannon was turned out of office in 1983. Farm broadcaster-turned-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), may have been the last chewer in the Senate, but he gave it up two years ago, says press aide Dick Wadhams, and never dared spit on the Senate floor anyway.

But hope springs eternal in the GOP-controlled House.

In the House Dining Room, Petrus Maduro Rothschilds, Penamils and La Plata Magnifico cigars--and President Clinton’s favorite brand, H. Upman--are back on sale from humidors for between $3.50 and $7 apiece. They were a huge hit after the 100-days legislation passed.

“I like good, big cigars,” says the white-maned Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “The Churchill is a very nice size. The size isn’t as important as the quality. . . . Cuban cigars are really outstanding. Every once in a while someone will bring you one from overseas. They’re very good.”

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According to a survey by Roll Call newspaper, what was a shrinking pool of congressional tobacco users actually grew slightly with the current 104th Congress, thanks in part to the Republican freshman class.

The House even ignores its own prohibitions--adopted, belatedly, in the wake of the Senate rules. Visitors in the gallery can still see (and smell) House members puffing away on the floor, albeit just behind the rail that runs around the back side of the chamber. (There’s even a tall, brass ashtray kept there for the smokers’ convenience.)

In the midst of the Medicare reform debates last month, Rep. Gerald D. Kleczka (D-Wis.) could be seen slumped over that railing like a high school dropout at a football game, taking drags off a Camel light.

In the militancy of this anti-smoking era, members are understandably defensive about their habits.

“I go back to [smoke in] the office,” Hyde says, “particularly when the day is over and the young ladies have gone home. Then the criticism is minimal.”

“I notice people with drinks in their hands [at social gatherings] are militant,” gripes Armey, “much more militant about smoking than people with cigarettes about drinkers. I don’t drink and I don’t think it’s my job to preach to somebody else about it.”

Still, one wonders if this new breed of congressional tobacco users is up to passing on the torch--or cigarette lighter, as it were--to a new generation.

In an apparent moment of weakness, Blankely blasphemed that smoking really isn’t good for you.

Says the Gingrich press aide, his voice dropping an octave: “It’s a damn fool thing to do.”