The GOP's cigar crisis
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🏛️ The House Republican leadership has a quintessentially Capitol Hill problem: A shift in committee chairs has left lawmakers without a place to light up cigars — and they're getting a little tense about it.
- Rep. Tom Cole's (R-Okla.) move to chair of the Appropriations panel created a domino effect in office changes that took away members' private spot to enjoy stogies close to the House floor.
- Now GOP members are urging Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to find a solution.
👀 GOP lawmakers stressed to Axios the importance of having quiet places to gather off the House floor to bond, saying the loss of Cole's "hideaway" — as such areas are known — has created a void Johnson should address.
- Given stark divisions and constant infighting among this crop of House Republicans, there's a good argument for anything that could ease tensions in the House GOP conference.
🔎 How we got here: When Cole chaired the powerful Rules Committee, his Capitol hideaway was a place for lawmakers to huddle and talk policy over cigars.
- But after Cole became Appropriations chair he let former chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) stay in her office, even as he surrendered the Rules committee spot to that panel's new chairman, Michael Burgess (R-Texas).
- That left Cole without a hideaway of his own, and cigar aficionados without a lair. Burgess, a physician, isn't into the cigar thing.
"We desperately need a place to smoke cigars, and I do not have — and should not have — the chairman's office right now ... because Kay Granger needs that, and that's the appropriate thing to do," Cole said.
- He noted that members used to be able to smoke in the Speaker's Lobby, a tradition Nancy Pelosi did away with in 2007, when she replaced John Boehner — an avid smoker — as speaker.
