If you thought you were incapable of being shocked anymore by the ongoing scandal that is your state legislature, it's time to rethink that.

Here's the scenario. Your young daughter applies for, and gets, an internship opportunity at the state Capitol. A great opportunity, obviously, and one that many young people across the state vie for, putting effort into the requisite qualifiers: good grades, public service, community volunteer work.

Once in Albany, until 2004, this is what happened to your daughter: she, along with all other female interns, was herded into a newsstand in the Capitol, where legislators would pick and choose their staff based on attractiveness, not résumé. There's a name for that: an auction.

Digby:

However, this truly is beyond the pale and should be a matter for investigation. If politicians who corralled a bunch of women into a newsstand to be chosen for jobs in legislators' offices based on their sexual attractiveness to the disgusting pigs they were going to work for are still in office today, they should be exposed. That's not consensual behavior, that's sex discrimination. This practice apparently went on until 2004, and there's no excuse for it.

This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of the Albany system of legislators who draw their own district lines and who are more likely to die in office than to lose an election: they prey on your children, because they know that you can't do anything about it.

And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because you're just going to keep on voting these people back into power. Given the glacial turnover in Albany, the people who bid on your daughter based on her fuckability - your teenage daughter - are all still in office.

Scandalous? Sure.

"Unfortunately, many of the people who seek public office are flawed people to begin with and the environment in Albany just tends to bring that out," said Paul Clyne, former district attorney in Albany.

Clyne issued a scathing report in 2004 on the internship program at the Capitol, famously saying he would never let his daughter become an intern. The report led to reforms in the program, including an end to fraternization between lawmakers and interns outside the office.

"There was a lot hitting on us and boundaries being crossed," said one young woman lobbyist who was part of that scene for years.

Surprising? No, not really. This is your state government at work.