Down Goes Bluto

In yesterday's primary election, Scott Wasiluk, the hardest partying State Representative in the history of North St. Paul, and the heir to Betty McCollum's seat in the State House of Representatives, faced the voters for the first time since he was captured on camera by KSTP-TV allegedly boozing it up during a late night House session. For him, the recriminations weren't pretty.

In a race haunted by his embarrassing appearance on a hidden-camera TV exposé of drinking at the State Capitol, Rep. Scott Wasiluk, DFL-Maplewood, became the only legislator to lose a chance for reelection in Tuesday's sparsely attended primary elections.

Out he goes. What the DFL caucus refused to do, the people happily obliged, prematurely ending the dream of the Wasiluk era. God bless democracy. A sentiment Rep. Wasiluk does not appear to share:

Wasiluk, who had the endorsement of the DFL, unions and environmental groups, was subdued in defeat. "I thought people would remember my service to the community," he said.

Don't you love it when politicians describe their privileged positions, which they scratched and fought for because of their ambition for power, as "public service," like they're doing us a favor or something. If he's like most politicians, he wanted to be a government official more than anything else in the world. And now we're supposed to feel beholden to him for 'serving' us? The man deserves to be bounced on the basis of bloated arrogance alone. But voters don't usually think in those terms on election day. And they usually don't remember alleged service to the community. They remember this kind of stuff instead (from the May 27 Star Tribune):

Rep. Scott Wasiluk, DFL-Maplewood, came over to [another legislator's] office while the House was in a late-night session. "I came to raid your whisky," Wasiluk said.

The station showed Wasiluk back on the House floor for a vote on a health care issue, looking sleepy. It also showed him at another point misunderstanding what was taking place on the floor as he monitored the session on TV from Metzen's office.

Now stripped of his title and his power, we hope Rep. Wasiluk can find it within himself to continue to serve his community. And if he spends his spare time reading to blind kids or cleaning up garbage on the side of the highway, nobody will care if he gets soused every night. See, now everybody wins.