Idaho rep is Capitol's last cigarette smoker

BOISE, Idaho — Standing outside the Capitol on a brisk January afternoon, Rep. Bob Nonini cups his hand deftly to shelter a cigarette — not from the wind, but from a camera.

The Coeur d'Alene Republican and House Education Committee chairman has the distinction of being the lone Idaho lawmaker who still regularly, if bashfully, steps outside for a smoke.

"This is private," Nonini says, declining further comment this week.

His solo status in Idaho's Statehouse underscores a decadeslong transformation in American culture. But despite a near absence of smokers in the Republican-dominated Legislature, don't hold your breath in anticipation of new anti-cigarette laws, even with about a quarter of lawmakers belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which forbids tobacco use.

Most Idaho conservatives have a stronger aversion to government overreach and tax hikes than they have to cigarette smoke, even ex-smokers such as Challis Republican Rep. Lenore Barrett.

"What we're doing is whipping on folks who are making stupid choices," Barrett says. "They have a right to make those stupid choices."

Highlighting how deeply those sentiments run, Democrats last year failed to win even a hearing when they proposed raising cigarette taxes from 57 cents to $1.25 per pack.

The smoke has been fading from the Capitol since the 1980s, when Rep. Lyndon Bateman says he regularly turned green from the gray clouds that filled closed-door Republican caucus meetings.

"It made me sick," says Bateman, who served five House terms from 1977 to 1986 before his 2010 re-election. "At least from this perspective, we've made a lot of progress."

Nonini is not alone among Idaho lawmakers in his use of tobacco, even if he no longer has anyone to catch regular smoke breaks with. In Idaho's House and Senate, there are a scattering of cigar aficionados, a few discrete chewing-tobacco users and at least one pipe smoker.

"Captain Black," says Twin Falls Republican Rep. Leon Smith, revealing his pipe tobacco of choice.

Still, far fewer legislators smoke than even the 16 percent of Idaho adults who puff cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.