Body Snatchers Rule Us

The situation reminds me of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The legislators look normal, and most are personable, but they have been taken over by space aliens who believe the most otherworldly things.

The situation mentioned is the status of the California legislature, and as I consider John Roberts' questioning and the Pledge decision, it's all coming together in one pool of mental anguish. The author of the quote above is the OCRegister's commentator par excellance, Steven Greenhut. He goes on:

Making legislative sausage - the arm-twisting, compromising, backroom-deal-making, back-stabbing - is not for the faint of heart. A particularly nasty incident has been reported in the Sacramento Bee. Earlier this month the state Senate's dictatorial Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Democrat Carole Migden of San Francisco, marched over to the Assembly floor to watch a vote on her bill to add new regulatory requirements for cosmetic manufacturers.

With the bill one vote shy of passage, she went to Republican Guy Houston's desk and pushed the "yes" button so that a vote would be electronically recorded. The normally mild-mannered Assemblyman Bob Huff, the Diamond Bar Republican who sits next to Houston, saw this and had to push Migden's arm away, then undo the vote. Huff told me that Migden's excuse - that she thought the desk was a Democrat's - is bogus. She has a reputation for doing this, he said, and even if it had been a Democrat's desk, a senator has no right to cast a vote in the Assembly chambers.

Greenhut sums up the California legislative philosophy:

• There is no aspect of your life, no matter how petty or personal, that should be off-limits from the meddling of government, outside of sexual matters.
• Government holds the solution to nearly every problem; those problems that cannot be solved by government can be solved by trial lawyers.
• Businesses are evil and out to do harm, and therefore need more regulation to force them to behave properly.
• Individuals cannot be trusted to make wise choices, which is why the Legislature and the state's bureaucracies need more money and more power.

Like I said, think of Biden or Kennedy or U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton or your state's legislature. The description fits.