Day: September 10, 2009

Just when it appeared that the fortunes of the California Republican Party had scraped bottom — a decline in GOP voter registrations has reduced it to third in the state behind Democrats and independents, and last November Republicans actually lost a few seats in the legislature, even though Prop 8, a nationally publicized anti-gay initiative, won — now Mike Duvall, a married assemblyman from Orange County who was rated by a morals-policing organization with a 100 percent voting record on “family values” issues, has been caught on a live microphone bragging about the sex he’s been having with two women, at least one of whom was allegedly an energy company lobbyist with business before the Utilities & Commerce committee on which Duvall served as vice chairman.

Duvall resigned his seat within hours after the controversy was reported on cable news nationwide.

But while the corporate media has referenced Duvall’s claim that he spanked one of his mistresses, Duvall’s comments were much more vivid and are definitely not safe for work:

“She wears little eye-patch underwear. So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday — a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy! … 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!’ …

And so her birthday was Monday. 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.'”

But he can’t quite remember his other girlfriend’s name:

“Oh, yeah, Sher, Shar, Shar,” Duvall said. “Oh, she is hot! I talked to her yesterday. She goes, ‘So are we finished?’ I go, ‘No, we’re not finished.’ I go, ‘You know about the other one [Barsuglia], but she doesn’t know about you!’”

(Note to Duvall’s wife, Cher-Shar and other possible mistresses: he engages in unprotected sex.)

The O.C. Weekly did a little research and discovered that Heidi DeJong Barsuglia, a lobbyist for Sempra Energy, turned 36 years old on Monday, July 6:

In April — two months after Duvall became vice chairman of the Utilities & Commerce committee — privately owned California utility giant Sempra Energy hired Barsuglia as one of its top lobbyists, according to Secretary of State records.

Barsuglia, who has a law degree and once worked as a speechwriter for Governor Pete Wilson, had previously worked at the California Retailers Association (CRA). During 25 months of work at CRA, she reported that she incurred no reportable lobbying expenses. She joined Sempra after the departure of another lobbyist: David Hayes, who was named deputy director of the Interior Department by President Barack Obama.

The San Diego-based utility conglomerate isn’t shy about lobbying lawmakers for favorable treatment. This session, they gave Duvall $1,500 in campaign contributions. In May, the assemblyman officially adopted the company’s negative view on Assembly Bill 64, which proposes increasing the percentage of electricity the utilities must procure from environmentally sensitive sources.

So exactly how big a hypocrite is Mike Duvall?

In 2008, Duvall blasted efforts to condone gay marriage. Legislatively, he has proposed bills to aid the insurance industry and government contractors feeding off the state’s massive transportation kitty. He has offered a law to alter the First Amendment rights of Americans by banning anti-war activists from putting the names of fallen soldiers on T-shirts with messages such as “Bush lied” on the front and “They died” on the back; he observed that the dead soldiers fought to protect freedom, and “opportunists” should not be allowed to “exploit” the sacrifices with political messages opposing war.

As noted, he has received a 100 percent rating for his “family values” voting record from the Capitol Resource Institute, an anti-gay lobbying group based in Sacramento.

Duvall lives in the northern Orange County exurb Yorba Linda, where he served on the city council and as mayor. In December, Duvall created a stir back home during a visit to the city council when a live microphone caught him saying, “I don’t know what to tell you, but I sure got all kinds of fucking phone calls about it.”

Finally — at the risk of channeling our inner “Wayne’s World” — can’t help pointing out in the context of this story that the current mayor of Duvall’s hometown is named Mark Schwing.