Hullabaloo

Thursday, March 20, 2008

 
Politicians Gone Wild

by digby

Of all the wisecracks heard in the marble halls of New York's Capitol after Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall in a call-girl scandal, one jest enlightened as much as it stung: Spitzer's got to be the only guy in Albany who PAYS for sex.

It is an open secret that there is a lot of fooling around going on at the statehouse. And at other statehouses, too.

In fact, Gov. David Paterson, in an extraordinary news conference on Tuesday, his first full day on the job after taking over from Spitzer, acknowledged he had had extramarital affairs with a number of women while he was a state senator. At night, legislators, young staffers, younger interns, lobbyists and reporters mix at two or three bars just blocks from the Capitol. And there are numerous receptions, campaign stops and caucuses where lawmakers, straight and gay alike, often have many opportunities for a hookup.

Up until just a few years ago, lawmakers would go "window shopping" for interns at the start of every legislative session. In a practice that went on for decades, the interns would be corraled in a Capitol newsstand so that legislators could pick their office help based on their looks, not their resumes.

The hanky-panky even has its own lexicon: There's the "Bear Mountain Compact," which says that what goes on north of the state park just outside New York City stays there. Lobbyists, staffers and reporters who seek to enhance their influence by bedding powerful lawmakers are known as "big game hunters." And the men who sleep with the women lawmakers are "boy toys."

"Unfortunately, many of the people who seek public office are flawed people to begin with and the environment in Albany just tends to bring that out," said Paul Clyne, former district attorney in Albany.

Clyne issued a scathing report in 2004 on the internship program at the Capitol, famously saying he would never let his daughter become an intern. The report led to reforms in the program, including an end to fraternization between lawmakers and interns outside the office.

"There was a lot hitting on us and boundaries being crossed," said one young woman lobbyist who was part of that scene for years.

I am probably more libertarian on matters of private sexual behavior than a lot of you. In fact, I know I am since I didn't find Spitzer's actions to be a matter of public interest except to the extent he had actually prosecuted others for the crimes he had committed and had run on a platform of moral rectitude.

However, this truly is beyond the pale and should be a matter for investigation. If politicians who corralled a bunch of women into a newsstand to be chosen for jobs in legislators' offices based on their sexual attractiveness to the disgusting pigs they were going to work for are still in office today, they should be exposed. That's not consensual behavior, that's sex discrimination. This practice apparently went on until 2004, and there's no excuse for it.

I'm not surprised that extramarital sex goes on in political capitals, where people from far flung parts of the state or the nation are brought together, away from their normal social and private circumstances. It happens in show business too, for similar reasons --- fame, power and fortune create a whole bunch of incentives that don't necessarily exist in people's everyday lives.

But this article indicates that lobbyists are selling their bodies for political consideration and that lawmakers used the intern pool (at least until recently) as their own private whorehouse. It's institutional, not personal. That's called corruption and discrimination and it's not the same thing as consensual sex between two adults. This is more like some kind of sexual plantation.

Surprisingly, the private sector is way ahead on this stuff. Going all the way back to the 90's, the business world began to learn that sexual harrassment and discrimination was lethal. It's hard to believe that the politicians who wrote the fucking laws took until 2004 to figure out that treating interns like Amsterdam whores was probably not a good way to go, but apparently they did.

Everybody knows that politics is a dirty business, but this is ridiculous.


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digby 3/20/2008 09:10:00 PM |