‘Cigar Hotboxing’ Happening in Congressional Offices After Republicans Lifted Indoor Smoking Ban
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” That’s not just the name of a 2004 Cypress Hill EP but also apparently the new rule in the GOP-controlled House. Republican members are lighting up their cigars in Congressional offices — and driving members of the press corps “insane in the brain” with the smell.
An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 banned smoking in many federal buildings, but only those under the control of the Executive Branch. The laws in Washington, D.C. similarly ban smoking in indoor spaces, but again, that does not apply to congressional offices.
The House runs their own house, so to speak, and with the Republicans retaking a narrow majority in the 2022 midterms, they’re in charge of setting those rules now that they’ve finally managed to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Speaker after fifteen absurdly grueling rounds of voting.
And with the new regime comes the pungent odor of cigar smoke wafting through the congressional halls.
“So there’s indoor smoking on the House side of the Capitol now that the Republicans have taken control,” Reuters reporter Patricia Zengerle tweeted Tuesday evening. She followed up with a few more tweets Wednesday adding more details.
Other congressional reporters confirmed Zengerle’s tweets, including The Daily Beast’s Ursula Perano, who offered the colorful commentary that there had “indeed been some cigar hotboxing” happening in the office of Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), the House Rules Committee chair and a known cigar aficionado.
To the dismay of numerous members of the press corps, Cole’s office was near the House press gallery, and the smell was “strong,” Perano added.
Haley Byrd Wilt, an associate editor at The Dispatch, even argued for Cole’s promotion to Speaker “so he can smoke his cigars in the speaker’s office far away from me instead of in the Rules office right next to the press gallery where I have to smell it.”
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