The Wackiest Elected Officials Ever

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

Sheila Jackson-Lee has represented Texas' 18th district for eighteen straight years. During this time, however, her biggest accomplishment seems to have been making her staff's work environment so profoundly unpleasant and stressful that at least one staffer has had to quit for medical reasons.

Jackson-Lee has been investigated for claims that she's bullied low-level government employees into serving as gofers and chauffeurs (illegal under Federal law). And she frequently demands luxury treatment such as private limousines, telling one aide "I am a queen, and I deserve to be treated like a queen."

Her actual legislative career is marked by long, obnoxious speeches in support of failed amendments that Congresspeople of either party tend to skip.

TED STEVENS

It is the solemn duty of any Alaskan politician to siphon as much money from the lesser forty-nine states as is practically possible, and by that standard Ted Stevens was among the No Official Nickname State's greatest leaders.

Stevens was a master of the earmark, a controversial policy allowing direct federal funding of special projects that the senator used to fund a 398-million-dollar bridge to an island of fifty people off the coast of Ketchikan.

A similar project to finance an airport to serve the tiny town of Akutan (and more importantly a seafood processing plant owned by one of Stevens' campaign contributors) later came under the investigation of a federal grand jury.

But Ted came closest to jail for failing to report nearly $250,000 worth of gifts from oil pipeline constructor VECO. His 2008 trial ended in a guilty conviction that Stevens refused to accept despite calls to step down from fellow Republicans like John McCain and fellow Alaskans like Sarah Palin, and for a while one of the Senate's longest-serving members was also a convicted felon.

The conviction was later voided by the Justice Department, but not before Stevens lost a close race to Democrat Mark Begich.

Stevens remains a controversial but generally popular figure in Alaska today and his name graces Anchorage's international airport, a somewhat ironic recognition given that the former politician died in a plane crash in 2010.

KWAME KILPATRICK

The past few years have not been kind for the city of Detroit, which recently became the first major American city to file for bankruptcy. Motor City's economic situation didn't see much improvement during the reign of mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

This wasn't entirely due to Kilpatrick's habit of using municipal funds to buy cars for his family, but it certainly didn't help. Not content with the usual mayoral vices like corruption and graft, Kilpatrick threw a wild party at his official mansion just months after his election.

The party was unfortunately cut short by the arrival of his wife and her objection to all the strippers currently on the mayor's lap.

Despite a concerted campaign to tie up as many loose ends from the party as possible (a campaign greatly aided when one of the strippers was shot to death by a gun that just happened to be the same model carried by the Detroit Police Department) details of misconduct and misbehavior kept cropping up.

Kilpatrick finally faced the music in 2008, resigning after being charged with ten different felonies ranging from perjury to assaulting a police officer. The following five years have seen more and more charges stack up against the former mayor.

While the slippery pol has evaded many of his earlier sentences, the most recent federal convictions for mail fraud and racketeering may finally land him behind bars for a long time.

BUDDY CIANCI

Vincent Albert Cianci Jr. was and remains one of Rhode Island's most popular political figures, having never lost an election in his career as mayor of Providence. Instead, Cianci found new and exciting ways to be removed from office, having to resign in 1984 after pleading no contest to assaulting a man he claimed was having an affair with his wife.

Ironically, he wouldn't have needed to do so if he hadn't championed a law that banned convicted criminals from holding municipal office. After seven years as a talk radio host, Cianci took another successful shot at the mayor's office, presiding over a campaign of urban revitalization so successful that he ran for reelection in 1998 unopposed.

It seemed like nothing could stop the charismatic Italian, but the very next year the FBI carried out a search warrant on City Hall as part of "Operation Plunder Dome."

Cianci laughed off the ridiculously-named investigation until 2001, when video evidence of one of his top aides taking a bribe surfaced and Buddy found himself sentenced to four years in prison.

Cianci's time behind bars seems to have mellowed the master politician, and while he is no longer prohibited from running for office he seems to be content with his legacy as it is, forever immortalized as the namesake of Family Guy's "Buddy Cianci Junior High."

MARION BARRY

If you read a history of Marion Barry that somehow ended at 1978, you would come away with an impression of a fearless civil rights crusader, a tireless supporter of education reform, and a man so dedicated to serving his city he was nearly killed when a rogue sect of the Nation of Islam took the DC City Council hostage.

From then on, his record could be charitably described as "spotty." He presided over record levels of unemployment, homicide, and the beginning of Washington's crack epidemic.

DC's crack problem apparently concerned Barry so much that he took a personal interest in the matter, and after a six-year FBI investigation he was caught on camera lighting up with an old flame.

Sentenced to six months in prison, Barry understandably decided against running for re-election... for a while, being re-elected to city council shortly after his time behind bars. Only two years later Barry won the 1994 mayoral election under the slogan "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect For DC."

Barry's political career continues today as a member of the city council, but the noble tradition of the crack-smoking mayor is currently being carried on by Toronto mayor Rob Ford, who in every other way is Marion Barry's exact opposite-for one thing, Ford hasn't been caught yet.

JIM TRAFICANT

James A. Traficant Jr. found his fame and devoted following as the Sheriff of Ohio's Mahoning County. He made national headlines by refusing to carry out foreclosures on homeowners who had recently been laid off by the collapsing steel industry.

At around the same time, Traficant was brought up on racketeering charges and chose to represent himself, claiming that his documented acceptance of bribes was part of an undercover investigation.

Amazingly, Traficant won, becoming the first and only person to successfully defend himself in a RICO investigation, and he ran with that success to a position in Congress, beginning a long strange chapter of American political history.

As a Congressman, Traficant typically showed up for work in bizarre disco-era leisure suits and tended to conclude his speeches with the phrase "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker!" as a uniquely weird way of expressing his disgust with modern American politics.

Futuristic teleportation technology wasn't able to save Traficant from a federal corruption probe in 2002 that ended with him serving seven years in prison. Stone walls apparently do not a prison make, however (even when they are the actual stone walls of a federal prison), and in 2002 Jim made the bold decision to run for re-election from behind bars, earning an amazing 15% of the vote.

Today, Jim Traficant is a free man who lends his support to causes ranging from the Tea Party to the anti-chemtrail movement, and even today refuses to admit to wearing that horrible toupee.

STUBBS THE CAT

One of America's longest-serving mayors, Stubbs the Cat was first elected mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska in July of 1997 at the unprecedented age of three months and has ran unopposed in every election since.

The ginger tabby prefers a "hands-off" style of government necessitated by his lack of hands, an approach that combined with the tourist appeal of having an adorable kitty cat as mayor is believed to be responsible for Talkeetna's economic boom.

Naysayers often claim that Talkeetna, being a town of barely 800 citizens, doesn't actually require a mayor or any sort of city government, but this can be understood as part of the American media's longstanding bias in favor of calicoes.

TIRIRICA

Brazil is well-known for its weird and festive elections. Last year, at least five candidates for office ran under the name "Batman". But Francisco "Tiririca" Silva made history when he received the second-highest number of votes for any politician in Brazilian history despite being a professional clown.

Tiririca, whose nickname translates as "grumpy," ran on slogans like "It can't get any worse, vote Tiririca!" which ruffled a lot of feathers in the Brazilian government but resonated with a voting public that viewed existing politicians as corrupt and untrustworthy.

Even a late-breaking scandal where a national magazine accused Silva of being illiterate (and not without some fairly convincing evidence) was enough to slow down the clown.

After just barely passing a basic literacy test, he now represents the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil's Federal Congress, where he supports public education, cultural projects, and (naturally) the needs of circus performers.