It's 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon, and the House of Representatives is hard at work making laws.

During a series of votes, members stroll in and out of the chamber to relax in the Speaker's Lobby -- an exclusive spot where they can put up their feet, crack jokes, read newspapers, make phone calls and, yes, smoke cigarettes, cigars and pipes.

Actually, it is perfectly legal for members to light up in the Speaker's Lobby, an unventilated room adjoining the House chamber on the second floor of the Capitol.

Reps. Martin T. Meehan of Massachusetts and Henry A. Waxman of California, both Democrats, sent a letter to Mr. Hastert in June, urging him to prohibit smoking in all House buildings and chastising him for not observing the D.C. ban.

Seventeen Democrats have signed the Meehan-Waxman letter, which notes the thousands of deaths caused by secondhand smoke and the risk of asthma.
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Seventeen. Out of how many? LMAO

All for me and nothing for thee.......

These people make me ill.

Waxman and Meehan have been the antis hand puppets for years, so I'm surprised that they didn't bitch about this years ago. They probably didn't even know that the smoking room existed until some busy body tipped them off.

quote:

chastising him for not observing the D.C. ban.

Congress and Federal property is not subject to local laws. Or at least congressmen are not, just ask Patrick Kennedy.

Yet Federal Office Buildings are Smoke Free.

I wrote my senators about it and told them that their smoking constuients would not visit them or government offices because smoking was banned at the city limits.

Neither cared.