Dan Linehan

MANKATO — Her bill is winding through committees she hoped it would avoid and leaving with amendments she hoped it wouldn’t be saddled with. At the very least, State Sen. Kathy Sheran says her bill to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other workplaces has been a lesson in capitol gamesmanship.

“This is a great bill to see all these complexities play out,” said Sheran, DFL-Mankato.

After passing unchanged through the Senate health committee, the “Freedom to Breathe Act” soon found unwelcome attention — at least from Sheran’s perspective — elsewhere.

On Monday, the commerce committee amended the bill, adding an exemption for restaurant owners who install ventilation systems that would replace smoke-filled air with clean, outside air. It also decided that the ban would replace the bans of cities with stricter rules, Mankato included.

Those changes have sent the bill to a third committee that deals with local government oversight.

In the Legislature, any committee chair can hold a hearing on any bill, as long as an argument can be made that the bill pertains to that body. The local government committee, for example, is next in line because of the amendment allowing it to override stricter bans.

If committee chair Ann Rest, a DFLer from New Hope, has her way, the bill will leave without either amendment.

She said the motivation behind the amendments is to water down the bill and not allow other units of government to tighten it. A similar battle was fought in 1996 over a law concerning the sale of cigarettes to minors, Rest said.

Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, the amendments’ sponsor, sees it differently.

He argues that allowing cities to retain stricter bans would defeat the purpose of the statewide ban: To establish a level playing field for business.

“We’ll be right back where we were,” he said.

As for the ventilation amendment, Rest said local governments have told her it would be onerous to enforce. Tomassoni argues that it will be a middle ground for business owners who shouldn’t have to bow to government interference in the first place.

“The thing that concerns me the most is the individual choice thing,” he said.

The bill’s House companion was voted through the health committee and is awaiting a vote from the commerce committee.

It might make sense if Sheran were upset at her bill’s detour. But she isn’t, even if she had hoped it would have gone directly to a final floor vote by all legislators.

“I believe that what’s happening allows a lot of people to raise the questions they need to about various aspects of the bill,” she said. “When it gets to the floor it will have a substantive amount of input and challenges. I think that is reasonable.”

Less desirable to Sheran would be for a committee chair to request a hearing without scheduling time for a vote, leaving the bill in legislative limbo.

She opposes the ventilation exception. And as long as her bill is passed without exceptions, she doesn’t have to worry about her bill overriding stricter local government bans — because there may not be any.

Meanwhile, pro-ban activists are opposing the amendments.

Bob Moffitt, communications manager for the American Lung Association of Minnesota, said legislators are adding amendments that most likely won’t make it to the governor’s desk.

“It’s a piece of political theater more than anything else,” he said.

Mankato activists have been testifying before committees and following the bill closely, said Chip Gay, an exercise physiologist and co-chair Mankato Area Smoke-Free Coalition.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he would sign a smoking ban bill.