Republican California Assemblyman Michael D. Duvall appears to like to brag about his sexual conquests. The problem is that he did so next to a live mike, in a state legislative room . . . and the woman was a lobbyist who he said had sex with him in his office.

I am going to refrain from posting the transcript of the first part of Duvall’s comments, which are incredibly disgusting. Putting aside the legal ethics questions, it is astonishing that Duvall felt comfortable discussing such an encounter, which says something about the legislative culture in the California state legislature. One question is the duty of the other member to disclose such information. This occurred months ago and yet this member appears to have done nothing after a ranking member informed him of having sex with a lobbyist in his office on a regular basis.

The married father of two then continues to add: “So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, ‘I know you like spanking me.’ I said, ‘Yeah! Because you’re such a bad girl!” [Laughing] And so her birthday was Monday,” he said at the Wednesday, July 8 committee hearing. “I was 54 on June 14, so for a month, she was 19 years younger than me. I said, ‘Now, you’re getting old. I am going to have to trade you in.’ And she goes, ‘[I’m] 36.’ She is 18 years younger than me. And so I keep teasing her, and she goes, ‘I know you French men. You divide your age by
two and add seven, and if you’re older than that, you dump us.'”

Duvall is vice chairman of the Assembly’s powerful Committee on Utilities & Commerce and one site has named ” veteran Sacramento-based lobbyist Heidi DeJong Barsuglia turned 36 years old on Monday, July 6.”

What makes this tape even more amazing is that it was just two days after Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee put Duvall on the Rules Committee that handles ethical violations, here.

Of course, such attitudes are not exactly unique to California. You will recall our recent tape of the Speaker of the Alaskan House of Representatives saying that he would gladly sell his soul to the devil to keep oil companies happy, here.

Notably, one site notes that “Assembly Member Duvall does not currently have any foes” I expect that is about to change.