They're Getting Punchy Down at the Leg

It's a tradition that when the scheduled biennial legislative session begins to wind down, lawmakers, staff and reporters have a "sine die party," which is a fancy way of saying "end of session blowout." All of the battles, arguments, frustration, exhaustion, anger and snark that punctuate any attempt to get something significant done, can be smoothed over and largely forgotten (until next session) when folks get together and laugh it all off. One of the best ways to relieve tension is to be able to laugh at oneself, and one of the tools to allow people to do that is to make a parody video...

...or two. Rescued from the cutting room floor after last night's party*, we bring you two featurettes starring members of the Oregon Legislature--as portrayed by their staffers. They're hilariously amateurish as far as production values go, which is good--I don't want to know how much staff time it took to make them. But it's also interesting to note that just because legislators are stuck in the Salem bubble for 6 months or so, they're still well aware what is being said about them from the outside--and the filmmakers put that scuttlebutt to good use. First up is Rep. Schaufler's The Godfather:

Not bad, and the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" gag at the end is a good punchline. But I like this one even better--Legislative Dragon Super-Committee:

Update midnight--
I should say that the videos were done on free time--shouldn't have suggested they were done on our nickel, sorry.


*or maybe a staffer just sent them to me...