Los Angeles Times state Capitol columnist George Skelton begins his piece today on the Mike Duvall scandal much more tantalizingly than a typical George Skelton column.The Legislature had just wrapped up its annual session when a top aide invited me to a post-adjournment party across the street from the Capitol. I went.
Entering the hotel suite, I saw an open bedroom door. And sitting on the bed was an attractive female lobbyist wearing only black panties. Two or three male legislators stood around grinning, chortling.
A little embarrassed, I hurried past to the main party group. The bedroom door soon closed. And for the next 45 minutes or so, one legislator after another entered or left the room.
The lobbyist had just won passage of a major bill, and I assumed she was celebrating by entertaining helpful lawmakers.
The kicker:
No, this was not early Saturday after the tortured conclusion of this year's regular session. It was 46 years ago, not long after I had begun covering the Legislature for a wire service.
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One of Skelton's points is “that lobbyist-provided sex–supplied
directly or indirectly by some glorified pimp — is nothing new in the
California Legislature or any democratic body, dating back centuries.”
But another he makes much farther down in the column seems to infer
that the Legislature provided sex by lobbyists 46 years ago got much
more accomplished than the gridlocked assemblage he covers now.
Despite
nightly carousing–or maybe because of the camaraderie it created–the
'63 Legislature was one of the most productive of the last
half-century, passing a major welfare expansion and a historic bill
banning racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. Voters
repealed the open housing act, but courts restored it.
To be
fair, Skelton quickly adds that the current Legislature, with Duvall
spanking and eying eye-patch underwear and all, “has had a better year
than it's getting credit for,” citing keeping the state afloat amid the
toughest economic times since the Great Depression as its main
accomplishment.
Of course, there is so much political polarization in Sacramento
that getting anything done often drags legislators into the wee, wee
hours of the morning–or more like the next morning–long after bars
close and before liquor stores start selling booze. As Skelton
concludes, “No one feels like partying at 6 a.m.”
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.