In what amounts to a political epitaph, state Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) admitted what much of the Sacramento establishment has known for a while now.

Republican Sen. Roy Ashburn, who has been on leave from the Senate since his DUI arrest last week, confirmed today that he is gay.

“I’m gay,” Ashburn told KERN radio host Inga Barks in an interview this morning. “Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long.”

Ashburn’s announcement follows reports that Ashburn was leaving a gay club before he was arrested for driving under the influence last week.  (SacBee CapAlert)

The closet is a soul-crushing, debilitating place to be. It rips you apart, and eventually, you will do something stupid. When you try to hide something so important to who you are, it will eventually consume you. And, to be clear, this is most assuredly about more than just sex, it is about who you love, who you want to share the rest of your life with, and who you are.  

The closet cracks in more or less dramatic fashion.  For Ashburn, it was more dramatic because of his history of support for anti-gay causes. For people like Bill Postmus, the damage can lead to self-medicating with drugs or self-destructive behaviors.  But in the end, the closet will always take its toll. It will always win; control your life in some way or another. You simply can’t control your life if you are trying to hide who you are.

Ashburn tries to cover for his hypocrisy by pointing out that his constituents would want it that way. But constituents don’t elect a set of political positions, when they are voting on candidates, they are choosing a person. A person with failures and faults, and a sense of morality.  Ashburn was so busy trying to hide who he was that he forgot to mind his conscience and whatever sense of morality to which he subscribes.

Time will move on, and Bakersfield will likely elect another anti-gay Senator come November. Ashburn will end his political career in disgrace and shuffle off to play the Sacramento third house games in some way.  But, he will do so as an openly gay man. And he will soon discover that telling the truth means more than the ability to go to a gay bar in peace, but also a sense of liberty that you just don’t have in a stifling closet.

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, an Assembly candidate who was ultimately defeated by Mariko Yamada, has come out swinging against Roy Ashburn.  The insteresting part of this, Cabaldon’s Facebook status update from six months ago:

It wouldn’t bother me so bad to see Roy Ashburn at Badlands with a boy if he didn’t have such a bad voting record on gay rights.

Cabaldon appeared in an interview on Sacramento’s CBS13 news program, and is now apparently big news around the gay blogosphere. Looks like Roy Ashburn is getting the full Larry Craig treatment.

The interesting thing here is that Cabaldon, and basically gay male in Sacramento, knew about this guy months ago. Ashburn always was a creep, but now, there are people tracking down his “passenger.”

Boy Culture has new information that suggests Ashburn’s mystery passenger is an openly gay 29-year-old San Jose man (he looks several years younger) who was visiting Sacramento for work and who did not know Ashburn is a senator. He is a Latino, which fits nicely with the supposition that Ashburn was picked up outside Faces-Tuesday was Latin Night. (BoyCulture)

For future reference, if anybody sees a Republican “family values” Senator at a gay bar in Sacramento, feel free to post a diary here at Calitics. I’m a little hesitant to write up anonymous emails, but if somebody else wants to write about their first hand experience, Calitics is a community blog that accepts content of all stripes.

That Sen. Roy Ashburn was a closet case was one of the worst kept secrets around Sacramento.  He would periodically appear in a gay bar, trying to be as discreet as a state senator can be in Sacramento.  He’s not exactly a rock star or anything, but in a city built around state government, he’s pretty recognizable.

And so, on 2 occasions, somebody sent me an email saying that they had seen him at a gay bar. It had become more common over the last few years, as he was heading for his term limit and had no logical place to continue his political career. And, with his vote in support of a few minor tax increases in the California budget dispute last year, his chances of winning a Republican primary for dog catcher were also rapidly decreasing.  Apparently, he became sloppy in his closet, either because he didn’t care anymore or because he thought he would never be caught. But, I’m no Mike Rogers, and I’ve never been all that great at the CYA work that’s necessary if you are going to start publishing that kind of stuff.

But, one sure way to get your name in lights? Get busted for DUI. And to make sure it is really exciting, bring along a guy that you picked up at the gay bar:

Sources tell CBS13 a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, early Wednesday morning.

The California Highway Patrol pulled over Senator Roy Ashburn at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday after an officer noticed a black Chevy Tahoe swerving at 13th and L Streets.

When the officer stopped the state-issued vehicle, the driver identified himself as Senator Ashburn. He was arrested without incident and charged with two misdemeanors: driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol level higher than .08% or higher.

A male passenger, who was not identified as a lawmaker, was also in the car but was not detained. (CBS13)

Ashburn was quickly released (you can get the records by searching for Ashburn here), and probably thought he would just get to make the standard apologies.

I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did. I am also truly sorry for the impact this incident will have on those who support and trust me – my family, my constituents, my friends, and my colleagues in the Senate.

Of course, this was before the part about the gay club came out in the media. I guess you can now read the statement in a slightly different light.

If people choose to live in the closet, it’s their own poor choice. It will eventually drive them to do stupid things (like a DUI), and act like a jerk.  But Ashburn is a slightly different case.  Back when he still had campaigns to think about, he was something of an anti-marriage crusader:

In better days Ashburn, a fierce opponent of gay rights, was fighting marriage equality and organizing anti-gay marriage rallies as part of his “Traditional Family Values” campaign. (TalkingPointsMemo)

In fact, Ashburn’s efforts weren’t only focused on marriage equality. His little coalition actually wanted to ban domestic partnerships.  The effort never really got anywhere; it wasn’t until In re Marriage Cases, the case that gave California marriage equality, became more of a threat that the move to ban marriage again really gained steam.

But Ashburn was there. Campaigning against gay rights in the day light while cruising for gay men after hours.  You could make a lot of excuses for Ashburn, he was doing what you have to do to get elected in Bakersfield, or some other such nonsense, but he went out of his way to attack gay rights.  And, that is often the case for these closet cases.  They want to draw attention away from themselves, and so they go as far away politically as you can get from the LGBT community.  They are scared of their own shadows.

Ultimately, it takes a little something extra to really go out on the limb  against gay rights like Ashburn does. Yeah, some of these people trace it back to their deeply held faith views, but there are so many issues to take up from the Bible.  The extreme poverty across the world would seem to be a far bigger issue, with far more and far more direct advice from the Bible. Yet, these people choose to focus on one misinterpreted section of Leviticus amongst a whole volume.  In a sea of advice, commandments, and admonishments, they focus on one unclear passage.  To spend so much time on one issue, there has to be something else to it than just one passage in the Bible.

The fight against homophobia won’t end anytime soon, but at least we can call it for what it is. Recognize those who are hypocritical, and stand up for our own rights.  The fight will continue. But, as Martin Luther King, Jr, famously said,  the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Voting for the budget and facing retirement has seemed to liberate Bakersfield-area Senator Roy Ashburn.  He shared coffee with a couple local reporters and dished about the behind-the-scenes budget process, confirming a lot of expectations:

In the wee hours of the Thursday before the budget vote – which had to have been Thursday, the 12th – the Senate Republican caucus met.

One of the senators pointed to four others and basically outed them for coming to his office and asking him to vote for the budget- when they didn’t have the guts to do it themselves.

Ashburn wouldn’t name names.

Ashburn also said senators went to state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, and asked him to put pet projects into the budget. That as Republican senators railed against overspending. Maldonado wouldn’t do it, Ashburn said.

What you have with the Yacht Party is a group of lawmakers afraid of their own base.  They glorify the importance of simpletons like John & Ken* to almost mythic levels, so that if they dare to step out of their comfortable ideological shells and help move the state from the brink of financial collapse, they believe it would be the end of their careers.  So like all sniveling creatures, they would rather have somebody else do the heavy lifting so they could maintain their pose of anti-tax purity.  And at the same time, they have the gall to ask the same people to slip in tasty goodies for themselves and their districts, so they can have all the benefits of compromise with none of the costs.

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but this is again the fruit of a dysfunctional process that enables Yacht Party cowards to extract as much as possible and maintain maximum leverage over negotiations despite their small minority.  The conservative veto must end, and democracy must be restored to California.

* – Just to add to the John & Ken stuff: James Rainey, the LA Times’ media critic, slaps them around a bit:

It’s all the fault of those no-good illegal immigrants. Yes, the price tag that comes with a huge influx of noncitizens is rightly part of the public discourse. So why muddy the waters with some confounding information?

John and Ken wouldn’t make that mistake. They make sure to mention the taxes the newcomers don’t pay and the bills they run up in public hospitals. Who needs to mention the taxes they do pay, or to waste time worrying about the lower prices and convenience we all derive from their low-wage labor?

Then, please, protest the cost of state workers. It’s beyond righteous to worry about the payroll growing, when everyone else is cutting back. But certainly don’t remind your listeners (at least that I’ve heard) that the fastest-growing state job category is prison guard and that their support of tough sentencing helps explain why that part of the state budget keeps growing by leaps.

And certainly don’t suggest that an economic downturn — affecting virtually every government and business in the world — played any role in ruining the state’s finances. It’s much more fun to pin it on that special someone. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “had five years to fix the problem and it got to $42 billion,” KenJohn said the other day. (Sorry, I’m name-lumping. But when the two get all worked up, I can’t tell their voices apart.) […]

It should be no surprise that “California Psychics” is a frequent advertiser on the program of late.

The business offers the services of tarot card readers, clairvoyants, astrologers and the like. “I think, most of all,” one satisfied customer says in the ad, “I felt validated.”

It seems to me that’s what John & Ken are selling too. A bit of hocus-pocus and validation of their listeners’ anger with a story that doesn’t bother with all the messy details.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

The latest canard that high speed rail opponents are trying to use to defeat Prop 1A is that the Authority failed to deliver a legislatively-mandated, updated business plan. Dan Walters made this the centerpiece of his HSR denial column today.

On the surface it sounds bad. But as the facts demonstrate this is a case where Republicans – and Democratic Senator Alan Lowenthal, who oughta know better – have set up high speed rail and Prop 1A to fail.

On August 26th AB 3034, after a weeks-long delay, was finally signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That bill directed the California High Speed Rail Authority to create a new business plan…by September 1. Giving the Authority merely five days to come up with the new plan.

Why the delay? The bill was passed out of the Assembly on May 29. From there it languished in the State Senate. Alan Lowenthal put out a nonsense study trying to cast doubt on the plan, but it was Sen. Roy Ashburn who played the central role in delaying AB 3034 into early August. By the time the Senate passed AB 3034, however, Arnold Schwarzenegger had started in on his temper tantrum, refusing to sign any new bills until we got a new budget. Arnold relented on AB 3034 – but had the bill bent sent to Arnold sooner, it would not have been subject to Arnold’s tantrum, and there would have been time to produce it.

But it gets worse. As you know, the state budget delay this year was the worst on record – three months long. The state Constitution mandates that a budget be approved by June 15 and implemented on July 1 – the beginning of the new fiscal year.

The Authority’s staff consists of 6.5 employees. Not a huge amount of staff to put together a business plan, actually, especially when you give them five days and then withhold a budget from them.

HSR deniers have now tried to use the delayed business plan to claim that Prop 1A and HSR are flawed. Today the State Senate held a hearing about the business plan, likely designed and timed to hurt Prop 1A’s chances. You can see the complete video here and the YouTube of the key exchange above. At the hearing Quentin Kopp explained that the plan will be ready around November 8, after proper work goes into its production and review by Goldman Sachs.

Roy Ashburn tried to attack Kopp over the delay, asking “You and your Authority are in violation of California law as we sit here today. If you were in my chair, what would you say?”

Kopp’s reply:

If I were sitting in your chair I would use temperate language. Did you ever read the state Constitution? Did you ever read Article 4, Section 12? Do you know what it says? It says…the Legislature shall pass the budget bill by midnight on June 15 of each year. You’re in violation of the law. Consider the outcome should a taxpayer bring a suit to recover the money that you eventually drew between June 15 and September 23 of this year. Consider the fact that people don’t work without being paid. Consider the fact that my executive director hasn’t been paid since January of this year. Consider the fact that when you finally appropriated the money the contractors who expect to be paid can finally begin work on the business plan. I’ll tell you why people should believe me. Because I have an impeccable reputation for honesty, integrity, and independence.

Ashburn could not reply to that point. He avoided it and tried to repeat his same points. But the smackdown was delivered, and Ashburn is exposed as a fraud. The state legislature, led by Republicans like Ashburn who held this state hostage for three months, refusing to do their Constitutional duty to pass a budget because they were demanding unspecified cuts, have absolutely NO place to be criticizing ANYONE else in the state government for not following the law. Ashburn is full of it and kudos to Kopp for calling him out on it.

Kopp drank Roy Ashburn’s milkshake. I think we’re done with this whole “business plan” nonsense, aren’t we?