By Alex Wayne, CQ Staff

Pity the lobbyist trying to stop a bill designed to benefit low-income children at the expense of tobacco interests.

The health and welfare of children ranks up there with national security as one of the few political forces that trumps opposition to tax increases.

Perhaps that is the lesson to be taken from the tobacco industry’s current low-profile campaign to stop legislation that would impose a tobacco tax increase to pay for an expanded children’s health insurance program. The industry has spent millions on lobbyists and campaign contributions in Washington while attempting to stoke grass-roots opposition to the tax increase in targeted congressional districts. But only President Bush’s stubborn opposition to a version of the legislation that would cost more than his own proposal has spared tobacco interests an ignominious defeat.

To measure the size of the task the industry has been facing on Capitol Hill, consider the case of Rep. Dan Boren , D-Okla. In June, before the House began debating the proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Boren was visited by a lobbyist for Altria Group, parent company of cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA.

The lobbyist, John Hoel, wanted Boren to vote against any bill that relied on a boost in the federal tobacco tax. And Boren seemed an easy sell: a conservative, second-term Democrat whose district had voted for Bush.

Boren said he assured Hoel that he was opposed to the tax increase. And on Aug. 1, he voted against an SCHIP bill (HR 3162) that included a 45-cents-per-pack tax increase. Later, when a compromise was struck with the Senate on a bill (HR 976) including a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to $1 per pack, Boren again voted “no.”

But on Oct. 1, Boren changed his mind, announcing that he would vote to override Bush’s promised veto of that bill. Eight days later, Boren’s wife, Andrea, gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Janna Lou.

“Maybe that was what triggered it,” the lawmaker said of his change in position. “I can’t imagine a family taking their child to the doctor or a hospital and not being able to afford health care.”

Boren missed the House’s Oct. 25 vote on the latest SCHIP bill (HR 3963), again including the 61-cent increase.

Holding the Line

There has been little outspoken congressional opposition to using a tobacco tax increase to pay for an expansion of children’s health insurance. But the tobacco industry, led by Altria Group, has so far avoided being saddled with the bill. Time is now also on the industry’s side, although negotiations continue in an attempt to craft an SCHIP bill that will draw the support of enough Republicans to overcome Bush’s opposition.

The politics of crafting such a bill is proving to be difficult. A bipartisan group of senators and House members has been working for about two weeks on a new version of the legislation that might win enough GOP votes in the House to override another veto, but they have had little success. Sen. Charles E. Grassley , R-Iowa, and Rep. Nathan Deal , R-Ga., two participants in the talks, said Wednesday that if a deal is not struck Thursday, there probably won’t be an agreement.

“There’s a consensus that we get this done tomorrow or we just kind of confide in each other that we can’t,” Grassley said.

Bush insists that he will veto any children’s health insurance legislation that includes a tobacco tax increase. “Raising taxes is habit-forming — once you start in one area, it’s hard to stop in others,” Bush told an Indiana audience Nov. 13.

Tobacco thus has “the biggest vote in town,” says Sen. Gordon H. Smith , R-Ore., who first suggested using a tobacco tax increase to pay for children’s health insurance early this year.

Philip Morris USA spokesman Bill Phelps would not discuss the company’s lobbying. But he said its opposition to the tobacco tax increase is rooted in concerns beyond the company’s bottom line.

“We think it’s unfair to adults who smoke and it’s unfair to retailers who sell tobacco,” Phelps said. It makes no sense, he argued, to fund a growing expense with a declining revenue source. Cigarette sales have declined by about 2 percent in each of the past 10 years, according to Phelps, while health care expenses have been growing by 4 percent annually.

States that depend on their own tobacco taxes would see revenue losses as a result of a federal cigarette tax increase, he added.

But supporters of financing children’s health programs with tobacco taxes see a dual benefit: More children can have health insurance, and fewer people are likely to smoke as a result of the higher cost.

Democrats want to expand the insurance program by $35 billion over five years, to $60 billion for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 — enough, the Congressional Budget Office says, to cover about 10 million people. The American Cancer Society estimates that a 61-cent cigarette tax increase, to $1 per pack, would prevent 900,000 deaths from tobacco-related causes.

“Really, the choice here is about protecting the tobacco industry or saving 900,000 lives, while insuring 4 million additional children,” said Steve Weiss, a spokesman for the cancer society.

Tobacco Fights Back

Compared with other forms of taxation, tobacco taxes have been a relatively easy sell. Over the past three years, state governments have enacted 23 tobacco tax increases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But the industry has fought back.

Last November, Oregon voters defeated a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have increased the state cigarette tax by 84.5 cents a pack to pay for health insurance for about 100,000 uninsured children. The tobacco industry spent about $12 million to advertise against the proposal.

The industry checkbook has been open in Washington as well.

Altria Group spent $7.2 million on federal lobbying during the first six months of this year, putting the company on pace to spend almost $2 million more this year than it did in 2006. Altria ranks 11th in lobbying spending in Washington this year, according to CQ MoneyLine. The firm ranked 17th in 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The company’s campaign has reached outside the capital. Some residents of the suburban Virginia district of Democrat James P. Moran received mail this summer from Philip Morris USA that posed the questions: “Are you a smoker? Tired of being a target for higher taxes? . . . Tell Congress that raising cigarette taxes 156 percent is going too far.” The flier did not mention children’s health insurance.

Nebraskans received a company mailing that declared, “[Democratic Sen.] Ben Nelson voted to target smokers for higher taxes” without mentioning why.

And a pollster hired by Altria Group has surveyed likely voters in the districts of 11 conservative Democrats, including Boren and some of the party’s potentially vulnerable incumbents.

According to a Philip Morris USA Web site, respondents were asked whether they agree or disagree with statements such as: “Relying on unreliable revenue from a cigarette tax increase to pay for expanding federal programs makes no sense. Congress could find the money for this program from the hundreds of billions of dollars it spends on other programs and pork barrel projects if it wanted to.”

Sixty-five percent polled in Boren’s district “strongly agreed.”

Democratic leaders say they are unmoved by the tobacco industry’s efforts. They frame the argument in simple terms: Lawmakers stand either with children or with tobacco companies.

It took Boren a while to adopt that view, and he says he still does not like the idea of a tobacco tax increase. But “it was one of those choices, and I chose uninsured kids,” he said.

As far as Boren is concerned, Altria’s polls and lobbyists had no chance against Janna Lou.

But unless a bipartisan deal is cut soon, there may be neither a children’s health insurance expansion nor a tobacco tax increase.

Emily Cadei contributed to this story.