Tuesday, March 06 2007
By Betsy Rothstein (
The Hill)
The recent standoff between Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and his Longworth House Office Building neighbor, freshman Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), has prompted Tancredo sympathizers — including Ellison constituents — to send Tancredo cigars.
In the last two weeks, Tancredo has received 100 in total, three of which came from people in Ellison's Minneapolis-area district. "We have cigars all over the joint!" Tancredo boasted last week.
Ellison's press aide, Rick Jauert, recently called the Capitol Police on his boss's behalf after he alleged smelling smoke and seeing it come through the walls from Tancredo's office.
To be safe, Tancredo checked with the House ethics committee to find out whether he could keep the cigars. He said he contemplated giving them away. "If I have to donate them, who am I going to donate them to?" he asked. He has since been assured that he can keep them.
Tancredo, who has three air purifiers in his office, said he thought about sending Ellison "an air cleaner, but I think I'm going to send an exorcist," he said, expressing doubt that smoke really traveled through Ellison's walls.
At Friday's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Tancredo further remarked on the incident, saying, "I live in a place run by what I refer to as the lifestyle Nazis here in Washington, D.C., that don't let you do things like smoke in public places, for God's sake. I want to tell you in my office, anyway, you can smoke … even though my next-door neighbor doesn't like it."
Ellison's office had no comment on the matter.
Source: TheHill.com
