Oregon senator got away with breaking state law for years

An Oregon state senator regularly broke state law with impunity.

As the Statesman Journal’s Gordon Friedman reported on Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Kruse has smoked in the Oregon Capitol for years, defying longstanding state law that prohibits smoking in public buildings and most other workplaces.

It seems incredulous that Kruse, R-Roseburg, either overlooked or did not comprehend how his not-so-secret, stinky habit affected his influence with legislative colleagues and Capitol staffers.

It is equally incredulous that legislative leaders, state officials and enforcement agencies acted so mildly and let Kruse get away with breaking the law. Eventually, the Marion County Health Department did fine the Legislature’s administrative committee $300 for his smoking in the Capitol. And Kruse was reprimanded at times and told to stop, which officials said he always promised to do.

Kruse could — and should — get fined $500 a day for smoking inside the Capitol. Regardless of whether he agrees with the state’s workplace smoking ban, he is not exempt from it.

It apparently is legal, however, for him to smoke 10 feet or so outside a Capitol exit, where an ashtray stands. He sometimes does so.

Although an ashtray is better than having smokers littering the area with cigarette butts, its presence does seem rather inconsistent with Oregon’s efforts to curb smoking.

Most smoking is banned in Oregon state parks, and the area surrounding the Capitol is a state park. Kruse’s alma mater of Willamette University, which is across State Street from the Capitol, prohibits smoking throughout its campus. So does the Salem Health complex, which is across Bellevue Street SE from Willamette. Salem city parks also are smoke-free.

There is no question that smoking is a vile, injurious habit. But it’s an addiction. If addictions were easy to overcome, no Oregonian would smoke, over-eat or become addicted to alcohol, drugs, video games or gambling. Neither would anyone become trapped by other habits that often are considered addictions when overdone, including coffee consumption, anger/aggression, shopping, Internet use and work.

But the issue is greater than simply Kruse’s indoor smoking and the resulting secondhand smoke that affects others. It his repeated willingness to flout state law.

An Oregonian who continually breaks state law should not be entrusted with making state law.

NEWS STORY: Documents related to Sen. Jeff Kruse’s smoking are at the bottom of this story.