Smoking is slowly, surely being banned in DC - it's legal in bars, illegal in restaurants, and will be verboten in both when 2007 rolls in. The only place it might remain legal is, surprise, Capitol Hill.

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Some members are confused that a new citywide ban on smoking inside the workplace does not apply to some halls or rooms inside the more than 200-year-old Capitol, one of the few places where the term "members only" is still relevant and where smoke-filled backrooms are no myth.

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Certain rooms controlled by leaders or committees are exempt from the policy and are allowed to set their own rules, which is one reason why cigar smoke often wafts from under the door of the third-floor office of Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, California Republican.

Note to GOP: It's been a while since you flexed those federalism muscles and overturned DC's assault weapons ban. Anything else you can think of overturning? Anything at all?

House's own smoke-filled room [The Washington Times]

H.R.3193: Title: To restore second amendment rights in the District of Columbia [Library of Congress]

-- David Weigel