Senator Lott's recent denunciations of anti-tobacco legislation as a "spending bill" that deserves to be interred has been particularly peculiar.
The Mayor is expected to sign the bill in a few days, giving the city one of the most restrictive pieces of anti-tobacco legislation in the country.
In the end these projects were never realised, possibly due to anti-tobacco legislation, and a change in government policy.
Some of the most expensive lobbying campaigns have sought to insure that nothing happens, like the $100 million effort to kill anti-tobacco legislation.
The Republicans stymied the Democrats' drive for regulation of health maintenance organizations, overhaul of campaign finance laws, and anti-tobacco legislation.
But no significant anti-tobacco legislation has been enacted since Mr. Pataki became Governor in 1995.
The fact that he smoked for 85 years was used by some politicians in tobacco-growing states to build support against anti-tobacco legislation.
Today, anti-tobacco legislation is moving tortuously through Congress.
It is from within this group that most of the opposition to grand-scale anti-tobacco legislation comes.
The anti-tobacco legislation was one of a handful of bills to emerge from the give and take that has occurred since lawmakers returned here.