Politics
Citizen Cohen: Former defense secretary, Maine native still taking global pulse
(Photo by Dupont Photographers)
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Thursday, May 31, 2007
Photos: Graphics package
Page: A1 (front-page lead)
Headline: Citizen Cohen: Former defense secretary, Maine native still taking global pulse
BY ANDREW KNAPP
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
WASHINGTON — Six years after leaving his post as secretary of defense, William S. Cohen still strolls into the “Pentagon” each morning for intelligence briefings.
But this Pentagon isn’t where Cohen served as President Clinton’s defense chief from 1997 to 2001. Instead, it’s a room in the downtown headquarters of The Cohen Group, a global business-consulting firm Cohen started when he left the real Pentagon.
He takes his place around a circular conference table with former generals and admirals. They exchange business intelligence on China, India and the Middle East.
“Everyone has to be aware of what’s going on,” Cohen said. “We have to be on the same page.”
In his own little Pentagon, Cohen debriefs his team of 46 mostly ex-government and military personnel. Some connect by telephone from two offices in China and one in England.
Cohen, 66, recruited the high-caliber squad from his 24 years as a Maine congressman and senator and from his four years at the Pentagon. Together, they advise Fortune 500 companies seeking contracts with the Defense Department in places such as Iraq or offer strategies for global businesses in places such as China, India and Japan.
“I’ve tried to look at the best and brightest throughout my career,” Cohen said in an interview at his office. “When they retire, I ask them to come here and serve us.”
During the past six years, Cohen has built his firm from “ground zero” into a high-priced service. He started with an unconventional business model in mind. In territory where lobbying is common, he aimed to recruit former high-level government employees with a wealth of foreign-relations knowledge. They would devise international business strategies instead of advocating for legislation that benefits their clients’ industries.
“He trusts people to do their jobs without micromanaging them or second-guessing them,” said Robert Tyrer, 50, chief operating officer of The Cohen Group, who has worked under Cohen for 32 years. “It’s nice to work in an environment where you don’t have somebody who’s hectoring you every five minutes.”
Symbols of the past
Three rooms in Cohen’s office bear the same names as three stages of his career in Washington: the Capitol, the Senate and the Pentagon. As chief executive officer of The Cohen Group, he draws from experiences gained during each stage.
In the House of Representatives, Cohen instilled loyalty among his staffers, many of whom followed him to The Cohen Group. In the Senate, he plunged into national defense, pharmaceuticals and agriculture, industries his firm now represents. In the Pentagon, he kindled relationships with foreign leaders, military commanders and politicians, who now are some of his closest advisers or business partners.
“He picked front-row people,” said John Hamre, Cohen’s deputy defense secretary from 1997 to 1999. “They were some of the very best in the Department [of Defense].”
Throughout six years in the House and 18 in the Senate, Cohen had always aspired to found The Cohen Group. When he left the Senate in 1997, he had business cards printed and signed a lease for office space when Clinton asked him to become defense secretary. He couldn’t pass it up.
“The next four years were probably the best four years of my life,” Cohen said. “Being secretary of defense is the best job in the world.”
Cohen said he’s just as busy now as he was during his 28 years in the federal government, but he’s not fixated on past triumphs.
“Sometimes, people can be a little bit stuck in the glory days, but he’s not stuck,” Tyrer said. “People don’t pay for reminiscing.”
The business life
By the time Cohen left the Pentagon, he had incurred tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, according to The Washington Post. Jill O’Donnell, a Cohen Group spokeswoman, declined to comment on the report.
But now, Cohen serves on the CBS board of directors and on the supervisory board of Head, a company known for its tennis rackets. Last year, after leaving the board of insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, Cohen accepted more than $100,000 in cash and stock options, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And from 2002 to 2006, his firm’s list of lobbying clients grew from four to 33, while its annual lobbying income, which Cohen said makes up only a “small fraction” of the business, swelled from $155,000 to $1.6 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Cohen Group lobbies mainly the Defense Department and Congress on issues ranging from national defense to real estate.
According to Senate records, about 80 percent of employees listed on the firm’s Web site have registered to lobby, and many have lobbied the same government sectors they once were a part of.
Cohen, who does not lobby, recruited some of the highest ex-military commanders and former administration officials who do. They include retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1996 to 2000, and retired Coast Guard Adm. James Loy, former deputy secretary of homeland security under the current President Bush.
“Most people we knew in government have gone somewhere else, so it’s less useful than you might think,” Tyrer said. “But even the people that [Cohen] doesn’t know will meet with him because they regard him as a senior statesman from the U.S.”
A loyal staff
Despite Washington’s transient political work force, many employees in Cohen’s office have been with him for years.
Tyrer, a University of Maine graduate, began working as an 18-year-old volunteer for Cohen in 1975 during the first of his three terms in the House. Tyrer went on to become Cohen’s chief of staff for three terms in the Senate and again at the Pentagon, then followed him to The Cohen Group in 2001.
“If I didn’t enjoy working with him, I’d really require some serious psychiatric care,” said Tyrer, who took a year off from working with Cohen to run Susan Collins’ successful Senate bid in 1996.
Some of Cohen’s business partners also resulted from friendships he developed as a politician.
When Maine Democrat George Mitchell was appointed to the Senate in 1980, Cohen, a Republican, helped the inexperienced politician adjust.
“When I ran [for re-election], he supported my opponent. When he ran, I supported his opponent,” said Mitchell, 73. “Our relationship endured through all of that.”
It also endured into private business.
In 2003, Cohen teamed with Mitchell, chairman of global law firm DLA Piper, to offer legal advice to clients interested in the reconstruction of Iraq. In the past four years, DLA Piper has paid The Cohen Group $720,000 in lobbying fees. Both firms have done business with some of the largest military contractors, including aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Though Mitchell and Cohen have disagreed in the past, they have been “more concerned with working together than letting our differences dominate,” Mitchell said in an interview.
Beyond the ‘Pentagon’
Cohen’s influence transcends The Cohen Group.
He displays his media savvy as an analyst on CNN, his leadership as an international spokesman for UMaine’s William S. Cohen Center and his intellectualism as an author.
“He was always a man who excelled in whatever he did,” said retired Air Force Gen. Nelson Durgin of Bangor, a member of the city’s urban renewal authority during Cohen’s 1971-72 mayoral administration.
Cohen, who now lives in Chevy Chase, Md., has penned 11 books. His most recent memoir, “Love in Black and White,” chronicles his interracial marriage with Janet Langhart Cohen. He plans to write at least one more book.
“But there’s very little time to do much of anything today other than to continue to build the business,” Cohen said. “It’s just part of my being — sleeping little, working hard and trying to do the best I can.”
The sources interviewed for this article struggled to provide personal descriptions of Cohen, a Bowdoin College and Boston University law graduate. Most said he’s a respectful, down-to-earth leader but a “complicated intellectual.”
“His favorite thing in the whole world must be going into his library and reading books,” Hamre said. “That’s unusual for a politician because politicians generally aren’t the kind to sit and read in a private room. They like to go out and shake hands.”
On the wall of Cohen’s own Pentagon, pictures of Maine’s famed Civil War hero, Joshua Chamberlain, hang near a world map speckled with dozens of dots, each denoting Cohen’s destinations as secretary of defense. He traveled 800,000 miles during his time at the Pentagon but has far exceeded that with The Cohen Group.
“No matter where I go, I’m always from Maine,” Cohen said. “Maine is always a part of me. I carry it with me wherever I go.”
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Govs’ salaries range from $1 to $206,500
Source: Stateline.org
Published: Tuesday May 15, 2007
Photos: 1 graphic
Web site: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=207914 (lead)
Headline: Govs’ salaries range from $1 to $206,500
(Graphic by Stateline.org)
By Andrew Knapp
Special to Stateline.org
WASHINGTON — Compared with the pay of captains of industry or college football coaches, the $124,398 average salary earned by U.S. governors in 2007 isn’t so spectacular. But for many, that’s not a problem. Three governors are donating their salaries back to the state, and others are fighting against a raise.
A list of 2007 gubernatorial salaries compiled by the Council of State Governments shows the largest at $206,500 in California, though the governor doesn’t accept it, and the smallest at $70,000 in Maine, where the governor hasn’t gotten a raise in 20 years. At $179,000, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) draws the largest salary among governors who actually accept one.
“When people run for governor, they know what the salary is,” said Ingrid Reed, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “They’re not doing it for the money. They’re doing it for the power to do good deeds.”
Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) took an $80,000 pay cut in 2003 when he traded a U.S. House seat for the governor’s mansion. Now, he’s the lowest-paid head of state in the nation at $70,000 annually.
In fact, Baldacci’s pay is less than that of 426 state employees, including his own assistant, who earned nearly $102,000 in 2005, according to the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a research group dedicated to less government spending. Baldacci opposed a proposed pay raise for himself last year and instead supported a teacher pay hike.
He’s also one of 10 current governors who once served in the U.S. Congress, positions that come with a $165,200 salary, higher than 45 gubernatorial pay rates.
“(Baldacci) could do very well if he chose another profession,” said his spokesman, David Farmer. “But people who become governor aren’t doing it to be rich. They do it out of public service.”
Considering the position’s perks, such as travel assistance and free housing, being governor is “not a bad deal,” said Jason Fortin of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. Forty-six states subsidize governors’ travel, while 44 have official residences, according to the Council of State Governments.
At $206,500 a year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who made hundreds of millions of dollars in Hollywood, gets a bigger state paycheck than any other governor, but he gives it back to California. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D), founder of health insurer HealthAmerica, gives his $85,000 paycheck back to his home state, where he accumulated much of his wealth.
Another multimillionaire, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), accepts a salary each year, but it’s only $1. That’s less than three-tenths of a cent per day. If he chose to take the maximum statutory salary, he would get $175,000, the fourth-largest in the nation.
“It’s a good political ploy to (not accept a salary),” said Thad Beyle, a University of North Carolina professor who studies U.S. governors. He said politicians run for the top state job not for the money, but sometimes to parlay the post into higher office, including the presidency. Four of the last five U.S. presidents served in the governor’s office before the Oval Office. “It’s just the next step to bigger things,” Beyle said.
Corzine, a former chief executive officer of financing giant Goldman Sachs, reported income of about $6 million in 2006 mostly through stocks, bonds and real estate. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein received a $54 million salary in 2006, making him the best-paid executive on Wall Street, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Corzine spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said her boss in “no way” has been put into a financial bind as governor. As a U.S. senator from New Jersey from 2000 to 2005, Corzine was forced by law to accept a salary, but he donated it to charity. He also has said he personally will pay for his medical care after an April automobile accident left him critically injured.
“He has been blessed in his life,” Gilfillan said. “He wants to give something back.”
Head football coaches at NCAA Division 1A schools are paid about $900,000 annually, the largest salary among all state employees, according to an April study by the American Association of University Professors. Though not shooting for top coaches’ pay, at least seven states have proposed a salary increase for their chief executives in 2008. They are Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri and Washington.
Republican leaders in Arizona’s Senate said the governor’s $95,000 salary, No. 41 in the nation, will reduce the quality of candidates. If a bill to raise the pay to $112,500 is defeated, the sheriff and attorney of Arizona’s two largest counties will be paid more than the head of state.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) opposes the pay raise, which would go into effect for her successor in 2011. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) similarly indicated they would turn down a proposed raise.
“With an accelerating cost of living, sooner or later, things will suffer,” said pay-raise proponent Marian McClure (R), a state senator in Arizona, one of six states that don’t provide the governor with a place to live. “It gets to a point that you get what you pay for.”
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Mainers rally in D.C.
(Photos by Andrew Knapp)
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Monday, Jan. 29, 2007
Photos: 3 by Andrew Knapp
Edition: All
Section and Page: A1 (Front-page lead)
Headline: Mainers rally in D.C.
BY ANDREW KNAPP
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
WASHINGTON — A passionate and boisterous contingent of about 150 Mainers joined tens of thousands more demonstrators on Saturday to advocate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and urge concentration on domestic issues. On Monday, some of them will lobby Congress to that end.
The protesters, including infants, college students, veterans, military parents, senior citizens, gathered in the center of the National Mall during the morning after a 12-hour overnight bus ride. Half of them were from the Bangor area, while others were from Down East and northern Maine.
During a pre-march rally on the Mall, with the Capitol dome and a pale blue sky as the backdrop, they listened to speakers including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and actors Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon.
“Peace is controversial, but so is war,” Jackson said, rousing a crowd that lulled at times. “The fruit of peace is so much sweeter.”
Each celebrity denounced President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. Each expressed grief for the 3,075 U.S. fatalities there, including 14 from Maine. Some called for the president’s impeachment.
“It’s important for us to gather together with others from all over the country to send a message that this war’s got to end,” said Diane Kay, 33, of Orrington. Kay’s cheeks were adorned with peace symbols as she sat on the trampled Mall grass and wielded a fluorescent green placard. “There’s something amazing about being in a place like this and sharing this experience with so many people.”
Expecting similar cold weather that plagued Maine last week, many protesters came overdressed, as morning temperatures in Washington rose from below freezing to the mid-50s by noon. New York City-based United for Peace and Justice, an advocacy coalition that organized the protest, expected a half-million people. Initial predictions appeared off that mark, despite tranquil weather.
Maine’s largest recent presence in Washington came in January 2003, when 1,000 activists traveled here, according to Ilze Peterson, coordinator of the Peace and Justice Center in Bangor, a trip organizer.
Five of the Maine protesters, including Tim McCormick, 60, of Ellsworth, are expected on Monday to lobby Maine’s House delegation.
McCormick circulated pieces of notebook paper among 60 bus occupants who signed their names in blue ink. The petition, which promotes sponsorship of legislation to fast-track troop withdrawal, will be delivered to the offices of Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen.
“I want to listen to what they have to say, so I can go back to Maine and let people know what our representatives are doing here,” McCormick said.
McCormick is a veteran on the protest scene. He came to Washington in September 2005 and twice during the Vietnam War “when you could smell tear gas in the streets,” he said. “This isn’t as controversial as that, but it’s getting there fast.”
After rallying, McCormick and his Vacationland cohorts marched. They marched with “Maine pride,” they said.
Many donned unique hats — one of a lobster, another of a moose — while others showed off L.L. Bean boots and backpacks. Another carried a bottle of Moxie, Maine’s official soft drink.
Pippa Stanley speckled her unzipped winter coat and underlying T-shirt with buttons, each emblazoned with a political statement. The 15-year-old made the 700-mile trip, which cost bus riders $75 each, without her parents because she “just had to do something about this war,” she said.
Marching past walls of policemen who cordoned off adjacent streets, Stanley was flanked by Steve Leighton, 57, of Fort Fairfield. Wearing a brown cowboy hat and bobbing a makeshift sign into the air, the bearded man, who also protested during Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s, feared only “old people who have been peaceniks for years” would attend, he said.
But activists of all ages clung to a tattered 20-foot canvas as they marched. Scrawled onto the banner, black and red X’s denoted dead Americans and Iraqis. Since 2004, the Peace and Justice Center has made eight such banners, according to Kathryn Gaianguest, 67, of Lamoine, a member of the center.
“We consider this sacred,” Gaianguest said as she clinched it tightly in her left hand. “We can’t let it touch the ground.”
Onlookers lined the parade route, which spanned sections of Pennsylvania, Constitution and Independence avenues, and pointed out the “group from Maine.” Others approached them and complimented the banner.
“You guys are from Maine?” one woman asked skeptically.
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Wow,” the woman said.
The two-mile, two-hour march led them around the backside of the Capitol and past legislative office buildings and the U.S. Supreme Court.
For Michele Roy, 48, of West Gardiner, the protest “was a great way to experience the city for the first time.”
A mother of a 29-year-old Army soldier who served two tours in Iraq, Roy said she “agrees to disagree” with her son, who remains committed to the conflict.
Along the way, dozens of counterprotesters sported signs that read “God bless our troops.” Some of them waved American flags and shouted patriotic calls and some curses, which were smothered by chants initiated by Roy and bolstered by the group.
“No more war,” she yelled.
“No more war,” the rest yelled.
Then they sang “Down by the Riverside,” a chorus that nearby protesters mimicked.
“Mainers like to sing,” one said.
Pamphleteers dished out information about the Iraq war. But hands were already laden with signs, cameras and superfluous clothing. One man stuffed a pocket with his lunch and carried a two-liter bottle of seltzer water in his hand.
The Mainers — or “Mainahs,” as they stressed to people — walked the final stretch with the same vigor they displayed on the first. But chants weren’t as easy to ignite. Their volume fell. They were tired, hungry, thirsty. One song turned somber, not because of fatigue, but because of sympathy for lives lost, including three U.S. troops killed in Iraq on the day of the protest.
“For the sake of my children and grandchildren,” said Marsha Lyons, 57, of Mount Desert, “I hope this makes a difference.”
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Maine delegation ranked seventh for its environmental advocacy
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006
Photos: None
Edition: All
Section and Page: B1
Headline: Maine delegation ranked seventh for its environmental advocacy
BY ANDREW KNAPP
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
WASHINGTON — The Maine delegation here continued its strong advocacy for environmental regulation in 2006, according to a nonpartisan ranking group.
Senators and representatives from the state ranked seventh among all state congressional delegations for their environment-friendly votes on high-profile issues such as global warming, according to the League of Conservation Voters.
League officials also stressed the importance of “venerable moderate Republicans,” including Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, in the political debate. Snowe and Collins ranked the highest among Senate Republicans.
The Maine contingent, however, represents an aberration in an overall complacent Congress on energy policy and environmental issues, said Tony Massaro, the league’s senior vice president of political affairs and public education. Massaro condemned the 109th Congress for failing to pass strong regulatory initiatives and stressed the importance of bipartisan support.
Some political analysts predict a shift in power on Nov. 7 from House Republicans to Democrats, and the Senate “could come down to one seat,” Massaro said. Control of Congress hinges on candidates’ inclusion of renewable-energy initiatives into their campaign platforms, he said.
“In this election, at all levels of government, energy policy is front and center in all voters’ minds,” Massaro said Wednesday at a press conference.
The 2006 National Environmental Scorecard, which the league said was released before the election to inform voters, typically favors Democrats because of their general pro-regulation stance.
Snowe, however, ranked 86 percent out of a possible 100 points while Collins received a 71 percent score, making them the top environment-friendly Republicans in the Senate. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island also received a 71 percent score.
Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen collectively ranked fifth among all House delegates. Michaud received a 75 percent mark while Allen had a perfect score.
Congress ranked low overall with House and Senate members receiving a 48 percent and 45 percent mark, respectively.
Massaro praised Snowe, a candidate for re-election, for being an “environmental champion.” The league endorsed the incumbent over Democratic challenger Jean Hay Bright, an organic farmer from Dixmont, who places renewable energy as the third-most important issue in her campaign.
“We look at incumbents first,” Massaro said. “Senators like Olympia Snowe earned our continued support, so they’ll get the continued support.”
The league regularly funds environmentally strong candidates during elections but has not contributed to any of the Maine delegates in 2006.
Hay Bright dubbed Snowe’s voting record as “pitiful” despite the ranking and said the senator’s votes don’t coincide with the public stance she has taken on the issues. Republicans like Snowe “deliberately look away” from crucial legislation, she said.
“They don’t seem to think we need clean air for some reason, even though we need it to breathe,” Hay Bright, who is trailing Snowe in the polls, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “Sen. Snowe is part of that.”
Hay Bright criticized Snowe’s support of oil-drilling operations in the United States and said the government instead should enact policy to boost innovation in renewable energy. In the only negative mark on her scorecard, which analyzed seven environmental votes in the Senate, Snowe voted to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska.
Hay Bright said Maine’s notoriety as being the “tailpipe of the nation” and bastion for air pollution from the Midwest makes the environment a top priority in the coming election. As the state’s economy transforms from forestry and other resource-based industries into a tourist destination, she said, more user-friendly methods to maintain the environment must be established.
Restoring the Penobscot River to its “former glory” and replenishing its Atlantic salmon population will be Snowe’s top environmental priority in the coming election, according to the incumbent.
“[It’s] a unique and historic opportunity that deserves and requires our full attention,” she said Wednesday in a statement.
Mark Anderson, coordinator of the ecology and environmental sciences program at the University of Maine, said the environment was sent to the “back burner” for the sake of more pressing issues of national security. The tendency for Snowe and Collins to stray from other Republicans on environmental voting reflects her constituency, he said. Despite the league’s claim, however, Anderson said the environment won’t play a vital role in the election.
“They’ll provide this obligatory lip service for preserving the environment,” Anderson said Wednesday. “But beyond the rhetoric, I don’t see the issue as dominant. With the trouble in Iraq, it’s just not part of our collective consciousness.”
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States go after smoking in vehicles with kids
Source: Stateline.org
Published: Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Photos: None
Web site: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=186298 (lead)
Headline: States go after smoking in vehicles with kids
By Andrew Knapp
Special to Stateline.org
WASHINGTON — Thirteen states ban smoking in most public places and workplaces, including bars and restaurants, to protect people from puffs of others’ cigarettes. But now there’s a move afoot to fence off the private space inside a motor vehicle if children are present.
Arkansas pioneered the policy in April 2006 after state Rep. Bob Mathis (D) introduced a bill to shield children strapped in car seats from secondhand smoke. Critics didn’t believe his proposal would go anywhere, but the Legislature passed it overwhelmingly in less than two days. And then-Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a reformed health enthusiast, signed it.
Louisiana in August became the second state to ban smoking in vehicles carrying a child in a car seat. The city of Bangor, Maine, in January went even further by banning smoking in vehicles carrying anyone under 18. The law allows police officers to make a traffic stop if they observe a violation.
Moves to ban smoking in vehicles mark a potential new phase in the nation’s crackdown against smokers as the case against secondhand smoke builds. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said there is no safe level of secondhand smoke. Harvard University researchers found in October that secondhand smoke in vehicles is hazardous to children even with the window slightly rolled down.
While Maine is not considering turning Bangor’s ordinance into a statewide ban, lawmakers in four other New England states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont — picked up on the idea. Rhode Island state Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski (D) credited Bangor as the inspiration for her bill. In Connecticut, state Rep. Henry Genga (D) got the idea through an e-mail from a 10-year-old constituent and modeled his plan on the Maine city’s approach.
At least 14 legislatures have introduced bills to ban smoking in vehicles in the last six months.
The trend began in 1998 when California became the first state to outlaw smoking in workplaces. Delaware followed suit in 2002, and 11 more states have since mandated broad bans against smoking in public places and workplaces, according to an American Lung Association report released in January. At least three other states have passed similar bans that have yet to take full effect, and many have smoking restrictions of some kind.
Legislators are pushing for their bills to protect underage passengers without much help: Anti-smoking groups aren’t rushing to support them. Spokesmen from the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights said some bills’ penalties would be too harsh. Education, not punishment, should be the focus of any campaign against secondhand smoke, they said.
“Yes, the environment is more conducive to this legislation, but it’s being presented in a way that makes people angry,” said Joel Spivak, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “This isn’t really about punishing people or putting them in jail. What it’s about is protecting the health of children.”
Bills pending in Montana, Arizona and California are the most restrictive. They would apply to smoking in vehicles carrying children up to 17 years old. In other states, the bans would apply only if the children were in car seats. In most of those states, that includes passengers younger than 6 years old who weigh less than 60 pounds.
If the bills were to become law, first-time violators could only be warned in Kansas, while in New Jersey and New York they could get slapped with a $500 fine. On the third offense in the same year in New York, drivers could be fined up to $1,500 or jailed for 10 days.
Smokers and privacy-rights activists nationwide dubbed the legislation an invasion of personal property that’s based on a lack of scientific proof. Gary Nolan, Ohio director of pro-smoking advocacy group The Smokers’ Club Inc., said that there are “more carcinogens in a burnt steak than in secondhand smoke” and that “secondhand smoke has never hurt anyone.”
“This will give law enforcement cause to pull anyone over who’s smoking,” Nolan said. “It’s big government, and they’ve gone too far.”
Pennsylvania state Rep. Peter Daley (D) said he was the first in the nation to propose a ban on smoking in vehicles carrying children — in 1988, after he had a cancer removed from his throat that he blamed on whiffs from his mother’s cigarettes. Then, he said, he was “all but burned at the stake,” and newspapers called him “off-the-wall bizarre.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania ardently opposed his legislation in 1988, and it went nowhere.
Daley is trying again this year with a bill that would outlaw smoking in vehicles carrying children who are strapped in a car seat.
The ACLU hasn’t yet taken a stand against the newest bill but most likely will fight it again, according to Larry Frankel, legislative director at the Philadelphia office.
“When are we going to stop and draw the line?” Frankel said. “At some level, the people have to be responsible for what they do. We shouldn’t use the law to enforce what we think is better behavior.”
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