Opinion: California lawmaker resigns after announcing on open mic not 1, but 2, sex acts

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First, the big news in California petty politics today: CBS has ordered production on the next ‘Big Brother’ show, No. 12, for broadcast next summer during the 2010 congressional races and in California Senate and gubernatorial elections.

And next week is the two-hour finale of No. 11. So that’ll be really, really exciting.

Also today, state GOP Assemblyman Michael Duvall of Yorba Linda resigned his elected position after describing two sexual liaisons to a colleague in some detail -- next to an open legislative microphone. (No, we don’t have that transcript here.)

Those things will kill you almost every time. Democratic Vice President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb near one last winter and, previously, Republican candidate George W. Bush was caught describing a particular passing reporter as a lower anatomical orifice. Embarrassing, though few of the reporter’s colleagues disputed the observation’s accuracy.

Also, then Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was caught on federal wiretaps saying %$#*(& and ##$*)&%. Also, %$#@&*\. None of which is illegal, except that those words were allegedly tied to auctioning off his nomination to fill Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. Which isn’t illegal in Illinois politics unless the feds say it is.

Shouldn’t these legislators pass a law requiring bright red flashing lights on every microphone that is active? What part of, ‘The world might be listening to your every word’ don’t they get?

Our colleagues over at LA Now have collected local reaction here to the disclosure and resignation of the married Duvall. Everyone is, of course, shocked and saddened, as even next-door neighbors to mass murderers seem to be in the next day’s newspapers.

The item includes a list of two other notorious extramarital political scandals involving Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. They are both Republicans. The list does not mention San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom nor LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nor ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was against prostitution before he was really for it. All three are Democrats.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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