Senators rejected S.88 on a 16-13 vote.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee had passed the bill 5-0 in March. But when S.88 went to the floor, senators voted to send the bill to the Senate Finance Committee, a procedural move that usually kills a bill.
The legislation was later revived. It was then ordered to lie, a procedural term that usually means the Senate will not be reconsidering a bill. The Senate did then decide to consider the bill Tuesday, with an amendment that would have still raised the smoking age to 21 but removed penalties for underage smoking.
The final backers included all five members of the Health and Welfare Committee (all Democrats), Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint, D-Windham, several other Democrats and two Progressives: Philip Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, and Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington.
The final no votes came from six of the chamber’s seven Republicans, several moderate Democrats and two Progressives: Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, and Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden.
Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, who holds a leadership position, asked to be excused from any votes on the bill several weeks ago because he runs a grocery store that sells cigarettes. Senators allowed him to be excused but did not explicitly say he had a conflict of interest.
“Some people are hung up on people in the military being unable to smoke,” Ingram said, “even though the military doesn’t want their soldiers to smoke. It’s frustrating to me because I just see it as really obviously a way to improve health and save people’s lives.”
Ingram estimated that raising the smoking age could save 10,000 lives. Although the state would lose revenue from taxes on tobacco, she said, it would save Medicaid money because fewer smokers would need to be treated for cancer and other diseases.
The bill had strong backing from the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Tobacco companies monitored the bill but did not take positions on it, according to their lobbyists.
Balint, who is in her second term in the Senate and first as majority leader, has been another strong supporter of S.88. She said in an interview that the legal age to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and smoke marijuana should be 21.
“We know 18-year-olds buy cigarettes for people as young as 14, so we’re really starting smokers at the age of 14, 15, 16, and I have confirmed this with some of my store owners back home, that they know” that 18-year-olds are sometimes buying for younger people, Balint said.
“We’ve become dependent on tax dollars from tobacco sales, and if we step back and think about it, do we feel comfortable as a state to close our budget gap with cigarette sales that we know, in many instances, are going to people whose lungs are still developing?” Balint asked.
Ashe, the Senate president, has said that if people can serve in the military at 18 they should be able to smoke cigarettes.
On the floor, Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, said that while she initially opposed the bill because she has “a little libertarian streak” in her, she changed her mind because she supports having the legal age for marijuana sales be 21.
“It would make far more sense to me to ban smoking period than it would be to deprive a certain segment of our population of the right to do so because we feel they don’t have the ability to make the decision for themselves,” he said.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said in an interview that prevention is the right way to stop people from smoking, but at age 18, “if they’re old enough to decide to get married, I guess they’re old enough to decide whether to smoke.”
Following the vote, advocates for the bill quickly released statements condemning the senators who voted against it, saying they handed a win to tobacco companies and their profits at the expense of children and public health.
“The tobacco industry won today, not kids,” said Tina Zuk, the lobbyist for the American Heart Association in Vermont. “Ten thousand kids alive today will die prematurely of tobacco. The Senate had the opportunity today to save many of them but said, ‘No, thank you.’”
Jill Sudhoff Guerin, the lobbyist for the American Cancer Society, said: “We are very disappointed at the missed opportunity to prevent cancer and chronic disease in future generations of Vermonters.”
“Lawmakers could have voted yes to save thousands of lives and millions of dollars in tobacco-related health care costs,” Guerin said. “Instead they voted to keep the tobacco industry generating revenue from the tobacco sales to our youth and to allow more young people to develop a deadly addiction.”
Kevin O’Flaherty, from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said: “By voting against raising the tobacco age to 21, the Senate voted to keep cigarettes and other tobacco products in high schools where younger kids will continue to have access to them.”
(VTDigger reporter Elizabeth Hewitt contributed to this story.)