If You Love To Party, Get Elected In Rhode Island

Is this the Rhode Island legislative building or a big
party spot. Some people wonder. 

Some jobs are more.....festive than others.

Take the Rhode Island legislature.

One freshman lawmaker there says she was stunned to see how much boozing goes on there.

According to Vice and numerous other media outlets, newly-elected Providence Democrat Rep. Moira Walsh said liquor cabinets are always full at the Rhode Island Statehouse and there's plenty of moments that break out into parties.

Walsh mentioned this not long about as a guest on WPRO News Talk 99.7 radio. She said:

"I am probably gonna get in a lot of trouble for saying this, but the drinking, it is drinking that blows my mind. You cannot operate a motor ehicle when you've had two beers, but you can make laws that affect people's lives forever when you're half in the bag? That's outrageous."

Of course, the drinkers legislators in Rhode Island were outraged by Walsh's outrage, which forced her to backtrack some.

She later "clarified" her comments and said Rhode Island House members were not drinking during hearings or before votes, but afterwards, such as at frequent fundraiser cocktail parties.

Earlier on the WPRO show, Walsh had said that legislators kept filing cabinets full of alcohol. "Dude, they put shots on our desk for the Dominican Republic day and we all just did shots on the floor."

Other lawmakers dismissed the idea that the Rhode Island legislature was one big party boat.

Says Vice:

"House Majority Leader K. Joseph Shekarchi told The Providence Journal that he has never seen the behavior Walsh described in his five years as a representative and noted that floor sessions and many committee meetings are taped for the public to watch. 

With the media present, Shekarchi believes if they saw something amiss they would have reported it."

On the record, at least, other lawmakers agreed with Shekarchi. One, Rep. Patricia Serpa condescendingly said of Walsh: "It's cldarly again an inexperienced legislator who doesn't understan. And I forgive her for that."

How magnanimous!

I can't imagine Rhode Island's legislature is the only one with an (alleged!) drinking habit. The Vice article goes on to note that for a time, the California legislators were given free rides home from work to prevent drunken driving arrests.

However, that practice was abandoned a couple years ago so that lawmakers would somehow regain the trust of the public.

Lawmaker Drinks to Montana

Every once in awhile, a politician comes along that has a viewpoint so novel, so bold, that you have to sit up and take notice.

Meet Montana lawmaker, and bar owner Alan Hale, who caused a big stir last week by essentially saying tough DWI laws are a bad idea. 

Such laws "are destroying a way of life that has been in Montana for years and years," Hale said.

Montana lawmaker Alan Hale

Or a way of death. It all depends on your perspective.

Fun fact: Another person named Alan Hale played the skipper on "Gilligan's Island." The Gilligan's Island Hale also owned a restaurant/bar called "The Lobster Barrell" for a time in the 1970s and 1980s.

Anyway, in a big, wide open rural state like Montana, Hale reasoned, how the hell do you get to a bar to drink other than driving?

Hale didn't get into the concept of designated driver, but, hey, leave the picky details to the bureaucrats. A lawmaker like Hale is the big idea guy.

Maybe he's on to something. A lot of people are on drugs, too, and they sometimes break into homes to steal stuff to buy the drugs. You've got to get the drugs somehow, right? So why is breaking and entering illegal? By preventing drug addicts from breaking into your house and stealing your electronics, aren't we destroying the drug addicts' way of life?

Hale, who hasn't been granting interviews, is surely thinking about his Next Big Idea. So, here's to our Montana lawmaker, who surely has an, um, interesting political future in this great nation.