Boehner lobbying against cat house politics

It’s the behind-the-scenes political game that the public rarely sees. Older male elected officials and the young attractive women who are employed to bend their ears, curry influence and gain those officials’ confidence. It why our public relations classes in college were usually filled with 17 gals and 3 guys. It doesn’t take a doctorate in psychology to figure out what is going on.

And so it is in DC, in tony bars in Georgetown and Capitol Hill. It’s what gave birth to The Washingtonienne, for chrissakes. An environment ready for scandal, and where strange bedfellows can go from being a saying to reality. U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner is working to curb some of this activity, especially as it’s beginning to end up in gossip pages and trade publications.

The New York Post‘s “Page Six” reported last week that Minority Leader John Boehner is telling GOP congressmen to please stop getting drunk with lobbyists — especially young, pretty, female lobbyists — because, let’s face it, it just doesn’t look good. “Page Six” had spotted Rep. Lee Terry “in close conversation with a comely lobbyist at the Capitol Hill Club in DC.” “Why did you get me so drunk?” Terry is reported to have said (among other things) to the “giggling woman.”

Lobbyist Glenn LeMunyon, a former Tom DeLay appropriations staffer, holds well-attended fundraisers and “after-hours parties” at his Capitol Hill row house. Missouri Republican Sam Graves was photographed dining at D.C.’s finest beer bar, Brickskeller, with a blond woman who turned out to be a lobbyist for the Patriot Group, where she “represents health care systems, financial institutions, utilities, technologists, tort reform coalitions, oil and gas interests, and human rights causes at the state and federal level.”

Salon‘s tongue-in-cheek piece references a Monday article in Roll Call that mentions that Boehner has been trying for more than a year to hold down the fraternization between older male representatives that like to stick around the district to socialize and the younger women who are paid to lobby them. It’s an admirable task. After all, the best way to stop a scandal in your caucus is prevention, rather than crisis management. Whether Boehner’s Democratic counterpart, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, is doing the same thing isn’t mentioned. But he better.

The idea of Congressmen Gone Wild isn’t a new one. In the 19th century, scores of illegitimate children would be born across the District after the end of a session. Now, however, is a different time with immediacy of information and a camera — more often than not one that can capture moving pictures — in the pocket of everyone nearby. You would think that would curb the libidinous impulses of congressmen and the women who are facilitating them. Apparently not.

Regardless, good luck, John. After all, being in the minority in the House does tend to lend itself to lost causes and delaying actions.