Three years ago, “the most powerful Democrat” at the Capitol was Charged and Forced to Resign over 20 criminal complaints. The news this week contains a lot of talk about how Chuck Chvala, master politician and former Senate Majority Leader, managed to work out a plea agreement under which he is only Guilty on Two Felony Counts.
Big Hat Tip to Reif at Notes From the Underground for finding this link.
My Hero Chuck Chvala: When I first went to work at the Capitol back in 2001, I was pretty green and didn't really know what to make of all the inside baseball and horsetrading and backstabbing and whatnot. Soon enough I learned that it's all in a day's work. But I quickly learned that there was one man who played the game like no other, a man who was truly worthy of admiration for his skills and talents as a politician. Say what you will about his politics, but he was the master tactician.
CC got his hand caught in the cookie jar, but let's not kid ourselves. If there's three words every politician understands, even if they don't recognize them, it's quid pro quo. … So CC was using legislative action (or the lack thereof ) to squeeze money out of lobbyists? You know what? Who better to squeeze money from, really? Most lobbyists are overpaid as all hell.
CC wasn't really doing anything differently than anyone else was doing, or would've done. You need proof? Read The Art of Legislative Politics by former Democratic Speaker Tom Loftus. The guy admits in the damn book to running campaigns out of the Speaker's office.
Somewhere Tanya Harding is sorting through her stack of restraining orders, and O.J. Simpson is out looking for the real killers, and soon Chvala will again start having meetings behind closed doors. You have to love that America is a land of equal justice.
