The Illinois House of Representatives failed to garner enough votes on Wednesday to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21-years-old.

The bill, SB 2332, needed at least 71 votes to pass but fell to defeat by a 62-45 vote. Even though the Senate supported it earlier this month, it figured to be a challenging task to recruit an additional 10 votes in the House.

The bill narrowly passed the House in the closing days of the session by a 61-49 vote, setting up an unlikely scenario for an override given the last-minute heroics to recruit votes for the bill’s initial passage. The week of the original vote, there were significant questions as to whether it would be able to be passed at all, with it effectively considered dead just days before it was passed.

With the bill dead, it leaves six states as having passed a statewide tobacco purchasing age of 21-years-old: CaliforniaHawaiiMaine, New JerseyOregon and Massachusetts, though that state’s is a progressive increase that will be rolled out over the next two years.

Featured image by Meagan Davis [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

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Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for MLB.com, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.