Senate and House overturn Otter: Smoking will be banned in bowling alleys

Publication Date: 2007-03-28

• Author:Gregory Hahn
• Publication:Idaho Statesman

Smoking will be banned in bowling alleys, despite Gov. Butch Otter's veto and claim the bill infringed on personal property rights.

"For us to walk away and assume his veto is somehow better than our collective wisdom would be a great disservice to the people we represent," said Rexburg GOP Sen. Brent Hill, who sponsored the smoking ban Otter nixed last week.

The Senate voted 29-6 to override the veto, joining an earlier 57-13 House vote. It takes a two-thirds majority in both houses to overturn a governor's veto, and this bill became just the third law enacted over a Republican governor's objection since 1919.

No other senator spoke on the floor — the Senate Republicans had just held a closed-door caucus meeting — and Hill urged the lawmakers to join into "that part of the American process that makes us great."