- Rep. Tom Cole's office had been a place for GOP lawmakers to smoke cigars and bond.
- But the Oklahoma Republican recently switched offices — depriving Republicans of their usual spot.
House Republicans are facing yet another crisis — but it's only tangentially related to the business of crafting and passing laws.
They need a place to smoke cigars near the House floor.
Until recently, they had one: Rep. Tom Cole, a long-serving Oklahoma Republican with a penchant for cigars, had provided space for such activities as chair of the House Rules Committee, which meets on the second floor of the Capitol.
"The rules office was a great place," Cole told Axios. "But I'm not rules chairman anymore."
Cole recently got a new job. He took over as chair of the House Appropriations Committee, a panel that oversees government funding, after Rep. Kay Granger of Texas opted to step down. Cole let Granger keep her office in a show of respect, leaving him without a space in the Capitol for cigar puffing.
"We desperately need a place to smoke cigars," Cole said.
Several House Republicans backed Cole up, saying that having a space for cigar smoking in the Capitol was important for mentoring newer colleagues and building relationships, especially in a place with as much GOP infighting as the House of Representatives.
"There's no better time to build a relationship than over a cigar," Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania told Axios. "You can actually have a long conversation with somebody, and it really leads to building bridges."
In general, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to be smokers at the Capitol. Rep. Troy Nehls, a Republican former sheriff from Texas, can often be seen lighting up a cigar at the top of the House steps after votes.
And the smoking trend extends to some younger staffers.
"My Senate office probably has the highest ratio of smokers of anybody in the US Senate," Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio told Business Insider in January. "So there's probably something to be said there."