California taxpayers (like me) pay the highest or second-highest tax rates on income, sales, and gasoline in  the nation, and fund a hundred-billion-plus state budget that doesn’t have enough money to maintain the state's highways, much less build a mile of freeway in the last few decades.  But they do take care of their public servants masters.  The Sacramento Bee reports (hat tips: Breitbart and Instapundit):

California Senate officials earlier this year hired two part-time employees to provide late-night and early-morning rides for members while they are in Sacramento, a 24-hour service that follows high-profile drunken driving arrests involving lawmakers in recent years.

The office of Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León declined to discuss the details or rationale of the program.

“We’re not going to provide comment, because it’s a security issue,” spokesman Anthony Reyes said.

Senate records show two “special services assistants” were hired Feb. 2. They work in the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Office, where their duties include providing “ground transportation for Senate members.” The employees, a retired Assembly sergeant-at-arms and a retiree from the Department of General Services, are paid $2,532 per month.


Sixty grand a year would buy a lot of Uber rides in Sacramento for the forty members of the Senate.  But I guess that allowing drunked-up senators to call their own rides would be a security risk.

The article does not mention that California state senators have special license plates – very distinctive – that tell cops to think twice or three times before puling over their cars.

It’s good to be the king.  And if that job is unavailable, California state senator is not that bad an alternative.