The Texas Legislature, as always...

Texas Capitol
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

During their glory years:

"in 1971 it unanimously passed a motion honouring the Boston Strangler, which a playful member had sponsored to demonstrate that his colleagues passed bills without reading them."

Around the same time Texas chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim walked around the floor of the House waving two thousand dollar checks to any member who voted for legislation favorable to Pilgrim. I believe one or two members took the checks. Up until the early 90s margarita machines could be found in the halls of the Capital, but the most extreme forms of public drunken debauchery were stopped when one of the House members took to the podium aggressively pounding the gavel, obviously trashed. But as recently as a year ago free alcohol came along easily. The only scare I had as an intern there came when I went to one member's office one night during debates at a Spurs-Suns playoff game party and reached for a beer out of the ice chest. A grave-looking man and lady asked if I had ID. I was 20 and mumbled something about getting a beer for my older brother but as I stood there awkwardly they laughed and high-fived each other and said just so long I wasn't 12, I was ok. I then showed my brother and Duylinh to the chamber, where members from Dallas were pointedly interrogating the members from San Antonio on whether they had seen the Mavericks win that night. Sadly that noble body of democracy won't meet again till January.