CLEARING ALL THE SMOKE FROM THE U.S. CAPITOL

THE LAST OASIS for the Marlboro Man, the one remaining sanctuary for
smokers -- the U.S. Senate -- was finally closed to tobacco last week.

A ban on unregulated indoor smoking began going into effect in the Senate on
Monday, a few months after the House imposed its own ban.

Until then, even as the Senate chamber was roiled by four weeks of raging
debate over how to restrict smoking across America, smokers could wander
inside the Capitol's mural-covered halls in exquisite calm, without fear of
censure or arrest.

Up until the most recent days, journalists themselves could light up right
under the Senate's sacred Ohio Clock outside the chamber, casually flicking
their cigarettes into conveniently placed ashtrays.

In the elegant, portrait-adorned Speaker's lobby off the House chamber, only
a short time ago members could suck on the ``nicotine delivery mechanisms''
of their choice, cigars, cigarettes, Tiparillos, even chewing tobacco. Staff
could chain-smoke at will.

Even inside the House chamber, members could puff away behind the rail as
they toiled on the great legislative matters of the day.

It wasn't until just three months ago that the Senate began contemplating an
actual ban. (The House began imposing its restrictions a bit earlier.) It
wasn't until two weeks ago that the ashtrays were finally removed from in
front of the elevators outside the Senate chamber.

The House and Senate had long resisted many attempts to restrict smoking,
reserving the right of lawmakers to make laws for other people.

Moreover, in this great bastion of democracy, minorities had their rights.
The South raises tobacco, and Southern Senators are legisla tors to be
reckoned with.

When the raspy voice of Kentucky Senator Wendell Ford was raised in defense
of America's oldest, most original crop and the sensual pleasures of a
freedom-loving people, new age dicta seemed grotesquely out of place.

Those days are now gone, although individual members are still allowed to
smoke in their own offices.

At the last count of the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, 30 members of
the House and six members of the Senate smoked.

They include House Majority Leader, and born-again Christian, Dick Armey and
openly gay Democratic liberal Barney Frank (he smokes cigars); the ever-tan
Ohioan John Boehnor, the chain-smoking chairman of the Republican
Conference, and rumpled Martin Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat who tools home
with smoke billowing out of his car windows.

Venerable Virginia Democrat and former Senate majority leader Robert Byrd
puffs on cigars, and woe be the fool who crosses him on Senate tradition.
But smokers have finally ceded their last refuge. Lord knows what could come
next. The Capitol, after all, is the last remaining place in the developed
world where the elevators -- every one of them automated -- are nonetheless
still operated by employees who spend their days pushing the buttons.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"