Minnesota has banned smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants. Some suburban communities have banned smoking in parks, and university campuses are taking up the fight, too.

Now, under a bill expected to be introduced today at the state Capitol, lawmakers will consider extending that prohibition to your ride.

Backed by the same groups that helped enact the statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, the new bill would prohibit smoking in cars when children are present.

"It's our children who are breathing this air," said Rep. Nora Slawik, DFL-Maplewood, chief author of the bill in the House. "That is a concern for all of us."

Slawik said she expects the bill to be controversial, though versions of the ban have passed in at least four states: California, Arkansas, Louisiana and Maine.

The ban would be part of a new frontier in anti-smoking advocates' efforts to fight the harmful effects of smoking, as state and municipal governments have pushed legislation into new areas. They include not only bans on smoking in cars with children, but passing bans on foster parents smoking around their children, for example.

Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, will serve as chief author of the Senate's companion bill.

"I'm a mom. I'm a grandma. There's no safe level of secondhand smoke for kids, especially in the closed environment of a car," Pappas said.

Studies have shown that even with a window rolled down, it takes mere seconds of a lit cigarette

for the air quality inside a vehicle to vastly exceed the levels deemed too hazardous to breathe by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 1975, Minnesota became the first state to ban smoking in most workplaces. Anti-smoking advocates scored another big victory in 2007, when the Freedom to Breathe Act extended the ban to bars and restaurants.

The U.S. Surgeon General has determined there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. In children, it has been linked to everything from ear infections to sudden infant death syndrome.

That's why people such as Phyllis Sloan, executive director of La Créche, a childhood development center that serves 130 young children in northeast Minneapolis, supports the bill.

Sloan said many of the parents at the school often discuss the dangers of smoking around children, and she's seen the effects on children at La Créche.

"Ear infections and asthma — we see far too many cases of those," Sloan said.

Lawmakers expect the bill to catch some criticism, including by those who still feel stung by the Freedom to Breathe Act. Pappas, however, said there are many cases where the state sets rules for parents, including car seat and seat belt laws.

"The state does act like a super-parent in some instances," Pappas said.

The bill would make smoking while driving with children a moving violation. Fines for moving violations begin at a little more than $100.

However, a violation of the law would be a secondary offense, like a seat belt violation. In other words, a patrol officer would need some other reason to stop a vehicle before issuing a ticket for smoking in the car.

"This is heavily educational," said Jeanne Weigum of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota, one of the groups advocating the law. "We don't ever want police officers chasing smokers. That's not their job."

Jason Hoppin can be reached at 651-228-5048.