Lawmakers’ ‘Bellboys’ Cost Taxpayers $2.3 Million Yearly : Sacramento: Eighty sergeants-at-arms and chauffeurs cater to 120 lawmakers. Records show they have picked up the laundry, taken children to school and delivered cat food.

SACRAMENTO —  Imagine having someone to take care of your laundry, stand in line for you at the bank, pick up your kids from school, chauffeur you around town and wait for the cable TV man.

You are imagining the life of a California legislator.

At an annual cost to state taxpayers of at least $2.3 million, 80 sergeants-at-arms and chauffeurs cater to 120 lawmakers in a way that even members of Congress are unfamiliar.

Danny Lynch, a former Assembly sergeant who quit to become a private investigator, called his former job “a glorified bellboy position.”

“You go under the pretense of being a peace officer and you get a badge, but it pretty much stops there,” he said.

A review of last year’s legislative logs revealed that:

* Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), who works out daily at the Capital Athletic Club, four blocks from the Capitol, is almost always driven there. He once was driven to a restaurant a block from the Capitol.

* Assemblyman Elihu M. Harris (D-Oakland) once sent a sergeant to his home to turn off a Crock-Pot and put it in the refrigerator.

* Rather than drive himself to his Santa Clara home on weekends, Democratic Assemblyman John Vasconcellos has a sergeant drive him in his convertible so he can rest or read. Another sergeant follows in a second car to take the first driver back.

* Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) once asked a sergeant to take a blanket and snacks to her teen-age son in Nevada City. She has him picked up from his Sacramento high school as often as two or three times a week.

* Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) has had cat food delivered to his home and office. Robbins once asked that his cat be brought to the Capitol, sergeants said, but that request was refused.

* Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown has a personal sergeant, so his requests for service are not printed in the logs. Other sergeants rush packages from the Capitol to his San Francisco law office or home at least weekly. Brown would not say what is in them.

The sergeants have also driven legislators or their children to ballgames, movies and rock concerts. They have carried out legislators’ household garbage, moved furniture into lawmakers’ homes, searched for lost items, picked up prescriptions, fetched a forgotten umbrella or coat, and even purchased underwear.

The Legislature has created a network that critics charge has virtually turned the sergeants into private servants. Logs show the sergeants receive legislators’ orders every few minutes throughout the day.

Ruth Holton, of the public interest group Common Cause, said legislators “shouldn’t be treating them (sergeants and drivers) like private servants. They’re public servants.”

However, legislative leaders argue that the sergeants and Senate drivers serve an important purpose: allowing lawmakers to spend less time on personal errands and more on legislative matters.

“His (a sergeant’s or a driver’s) time is far less valuable than that of a member,” Assembly Rules Chairman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana) said.

Bane acknowledged, however, “There’s no question in my mind that some things are done that shouldn’t be done. But people are elected to be responsible.”

The legislators began using sergeants to drive them around in the 1960s, primarily to go to and from the airport.

Mindful of potential abuses, Senate leaders have tried to restrict their members’ use of drivers--who unlike the Assembly are not sergeants-at-arms--to the basic airport, laundry, banking and lunch runs. Many senators drive their own state-leased cars or a pool car.

Former Sen. Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier, who resigned after his conviction last month on political corruption charges, sought to use the service for rides to his lawyer’s office, according to a Senate source who asked not to be identified. He was told not to, but once persuaded a driver to take him anyway, logs indicated.

The Assembly, on the other hand, “allows the members to be taken wherever they need to go,” even to campaign fund-raisers and other political events, Bane said. “They put in long hours, and if it saves them time, then they can use it.”

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), however, said his house does not allow the practice because it could be construed as using taxpayers’ money for political purposes, which is illegal.

Assembly sergeants are instructed to remain closed-mouthed about where they take the members, and many are afraid to talk even after they quit their jobs.

“There were times when I picked up a girlfriend one day and a wife the next, and I just kept a straight face,” said former sergeant Lydia Sims, who recently received $95,500 in a settlement of her sexual harassment lawsuit against a supervisor and the Assembly.

A reporter requested to review the sergeants’ logs under the California legislative open records law. Shortly thereafter, the Assembly began giving less detailed descriptions about errands they were asked to run. For example, instead of saying where a member is driven to, the logs now simply read, “member transport.” Assembly Chief Sgt. Charles Bell said the change was made “for security reasons.”

Still, a detailed picture of the sergeants’ service can be pieced together from a review of their earlier logs and from interviews with drivers. A United Press International review found a wide variety of uses.

Although most legislators favor ride-sharing programs for the commuting public, logs show they usually have separate cars pick them up at the airport, even if they’re on the same flight or their flights are only a few minutes apart.

Some lawmakers, such as Mojonnier, use the state sergeants to drive family members around.

At first, Mojonnier denied having her teen-age son picked up at or driven to school recently, but when notified that logs for the last year show that occurring as many as three times in a week, she said, “Well, it’s been a long time.”

“My time is so encumbered,” she said.

Other legislators frequently ask the state drivers to run personal errands.

According to Senate logs, Robbins, for example, regularly asks a driver to take his boots to the first floor of the Capitol to be shined, to have personal or campaign letters brought to a secretarial service to be typed, to have his girlfriends brought to the airport and to have packages of tofu picked up from the airport.

The logs also show that Robbins had cat food delivered to his office and home. Robbins says it probably was medication, not cat food. Robbins also asked to have his cat brought to the Capitol one day but was refused. He said he wanted the cat there for an animal rights hearing. Robbins defended his requests, noting that he gave the Senate Rules Committee $1,260 in the last year for any personal services the state may have had to pay for.

But Holton of Common Cause said: “That’s obviously a very haphazard way of doing things. That does not undo the fact that they are using state resources for their personal gain.”