Migden: successful, eccentric, vulnerable

SACRAMENTO — State Sen. Carole Migden was in the Legislature pressing her colleagues to back one of her bills when electronic voting began.

Noticing that one lawmaker was away from his desk, Migden impatiently pushed his green "yes" button.

That 2004 breach of protocol drew bipartisan reproof, and Migden, a San Francisco Democrat, was removed from the committee she chaired. But her bill, which increases regulation of chemicals used in cosmetics, ultimately became law even without the improper vote.

In a decade in state office, Migden has racked up several careers' worth of peculiar episodes, but few embody her talents and excesses so plainly.

One of the first openly lesbian lawmakers, Migden has established herself as a shrewd and tenacious politician with a talent for selling liberal legislation to moderate colleagues. In 1999, she persuaded legislators and Gov. Gray Davis to give gay partners some of the legal rights that married couples have. She has maneuvered 105 other measures into law.

"I've never met anyone who works harder than Carole Migden," said Susan Kennedy, a top aide to Davis and now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's chief of staff. "She has a rare combination of someone who lives her values but wants to get things done. She's got a very practical political side that isn't satisfied with simply making political statements."

But her eccentric ways have backfired often enough to become recurring features in San Francisco's political press and to earn her enmity in Sacramento.

In her first year in office, the San Francisco Examiner published a column calling her "Sacramento's scariest boss." That reputation grew during her tenure as she cycled through employees who tired, according to multiple former staffers, of being dressed down for any lapse and dispatched on personal errands like picking up gourmet coffee or fixing her dryer.

Last year Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) personally selected Migden's chief of staff to help steady both the office and its principal denizen.

Since a car accident May 18, Migden's behavior has drawn attention beyond political circles. By her own account and that of police, Migden drove 16 miles in an addled state, twice swiping the median barrier before smacking into the back of a stopped car in Fairfield, between Sacramento and Oakland.