SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California lawmakers will take up a bill that would add a $1.90 tax to each pack of cigarettes sold in the state, an effort that may gain political momentum if the new U.S. Congress puts the spotlight on health care, analysts said on Monday.

California lawmakers will also consider at least two other bills aimed at smokers and, by extension, tobacco companies.

One of the bills would impose a fine for smoking in an automobile if children are in the vehicle. The other would ban smoking at state parks and beaches.

The bills come on the heels of last month's rejection by voters of Proposition 86, which would have slapped a $2.60 tax on packs of cigarette to raise funds for health-care programs.

Despite that defeat the bills may get sympathetic hearings in Sacramento, the state capital, as Republican Gov. Arnold and the Democrat-led legislature have said they would make health-care financing a priority next year.

Don Perata, the state Senate President Pro Tem, has already proposed a bill to require Californians with jobs to carry health-care insurance, paid for by employees and employers. Schwarzenegger said it was "fantastic" that Perata had put forward a proposal so early.

With Republicans handing off control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats next month, Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers are angling for a role in an anticipated national discussion about health care and its costs, said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

"The issue is gathering momentum at the national level," Pitney said. "You have Democrats taking control of Congress, which means the national leadership will press the health-care issue much more strongly than Republicans did when they had control. ... Also, people continue to struggle with health-care costs. A visit to the doctor isn't getting any cheaper."

A part of those bills could be picked up by smokers, increasingly a target of regulation at the local level in California, Pitney said.

Towns and cities across the state have in recent years passed ordinances restricting where smokers may light up. Parks have been placed parks off limits with some municipalities considering bans of smoking in all public places because of growing concerns about the effect of second-hand smoke on nonsmokers -- a major reason why smoking has been banned at work in the state.

"In California, there have been smoke-free work places for years," said Bronson Frick, associate director of Berkeley, California-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

The bill in the state capital to raise cigarette taxes is not guaranteed success. Republican lawmakers in the legislature's minority are hostile to any proposed tax increases and many Democrats are reluctant to back a sin tax that would fall disproportionately on the poor.

Tobacco interests will actively lobby against a tax hike, throwing considerable funds into the fray.

"There was a lot of voter confusion with the tobacco companies spending nearly $100 million to defeat Prop 86," Frick said, noting how much critics of the ballot measure spent.