Here is what happens when voters are not devoting attention to the Sacramento Zoo:
The ethical midgets of our sinless state Senate have engineered what should win the Boob Prize as the slimiest maneuver of the political year.
Even for Democrats, this shift into reverse, from Good Guy gear to Bad Guy gear, qualifies as unpalatably oily.
First, background:
Two years ago, three of the Senate’s greasiest Democrat monkeys got their six knees trapped in still another self-invited corruption machine.
Looking phonily brave, the Senate sort of promptly dropped into self-correction mode. Shock swept the state — and across the minds of both voters watching the drill.
Preening for the cameras, senators successfully sought to fool the public.
In a supposed effort to vanquish temptation, they announced that hereafter fundraising by senators would be banned for two sensitive periods of the year so that pols would not be tempted to accept lucre from money-bulging lobbyists.
The sin-free senators only left out one juicy clause:
The ban merely would survive until the very next election cycle. Then poof, it would be vanquished.
The first ban period was to start Monday. Just in the Nickelodeon of time, the alert little boys in the Senate voted 24-8 yesterday to, uh, assassinate the phony “regulation.”
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, who speaks with a circle of salted marbles in each cheek, nearly collapsed in tears as he mumbled his freshest apology.
Since the Assembly did not adopt a similar rule, Sen. Mumbles stuttered, it would not be fair to his guys to deny them a shot at cashing in when their Lower House bros were stuffing their pockets with cabbage.
With his eyes on a nearby two-legged mouse, Sen. Mumbles, casting about for a shlub to blame, found one.
“After careful review,” he burbled, “the Rules Committee has determined that the restrictions are too limiting to apply unilaterally to only one legislative house.”
It broke his previously unacknowledged heart.
Sen. Mumbles said he hated to take this action. Twirling his rounded shoulders in a half-shrug, he muttered: “I do this with reluctance as well as regret,” while forcing himself not to giggle into the tears bucket he held out of his colleagues’ view.
