Alexandria police arrest Idaho Senator Mike Crapo for driving under the influence

But not to wor­ry, we hear you can be for­giv­en for dri­ving drunk (or, in Lar­ry Craig’s case, solic­it­ing sex in an air­port bath­room) if you’re a Republican:

Police in Alexan­dria, Vir­gina  said the three-term sen­a­tor from Bon­neville Coun­ty failed field sobri­ety tests after an offi­cer saw Crapo’s vehi­cle run a red light and pulled him over about 12:45 a.m. Sunday.

“There was no refusal (to take sobri­ety tests), no acci­dent, no injuries,” Alexan­dria police spokesman Jody Don­ald­son said. “Just a traf­fic stop that result­ed in a DUI.”

Crapo, who was alone in his vehi­cle, reg­is­tered a blood alco­hol con­tent of 0.11, police said. The legal lim­it in Vir­ginia is the same as in Ida­ho — 0.08.

The sen­a­tor was tak­en to jail, then released on an unse­cured $1,000 bond about 5 a.m., police said. He is charged with mis­de­meanor dri­ving under the influence.

Crapo, six­ty-one, is serv­ing his third term in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate. He joined Con­gress’ upper cham­ber in 1999, and served for a decade along­side Lar­ry Craig, who chose not to seek reelec­tion after he was arrest­ed in Min­neapo­lis-St. Paul Inter­na­tion­al Air­port for lewd con­duct dur­ing the sum­mer of 2007.

One of Crapo’s first offi­cial acts as a U.S. Sen­a­tor was to cast a vote in favor of con­vict­ing for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton for per­jury and obstruc­tion of jus­tice fol­low­ing Clin­ton’s tri­al in the U.S. Sen­ate, which last­ed for over a month, presided over by for­mer Chief Jus­tice William Rehnquist.

On Feb­ru­ary 12th, 1999, Crapo took to the Sen­ate floor to announce how he had decid­ed to vote. Here is an excerpt from that speech:

At the out­set [of the tri­al], each Sen­a­tor was admin­is­tered a sep­a­rate oath by the Chief Jus­tice of the Supreme Court. This spe­cial oath was sep­a­rate and dis­tinct from the oath of office that each Sen­a­tor takes when sworn into office. To my knowl­edge, this is the only oth­er occa­sion in which our Found­ing Fathers required a sep­a­rate and dis­tinct oath of U.S. Sen­a­tors to per­form a con­sti­tu­tion­al responsibility.

Once again, the incred­i­ble wis­dom of our Found­ing Fathers was evi­dent. As each Sen­a­tor took the oath to pro­vide impar­tial jus­tice, a real­iza­tion fell over us that we had just embarked on a very solemn duty. No longer was the Sen­ate a leg­isla­tive body, it was a court of impeach­ment. A unique court, to be sure, not iden­ti­cal to tra­di­tion­al civ­il and crim­i­nal courts, but a court nonetheless.

This oath to ren­der “impar­tial jus­tice” was a promise to God under our Con­sti­tu­tion. It also rep­re­sent­ed a duty to all Ida­hoans to rep­re­sent them impar­tial­ly. I com­mit­ted that I would con­duct myself in a fash­ion so that at any time I could affirm that I ful­ly hon­ored this com­mit­ment.

Empha­sis is mine.

Crapo cer­tain­ly isn’t proud of his con­duct this week­end. In a brief state­ment issued this evening, he tried to sound very apolo­getic. But curi­ous­ly, he referred repeat­ed­ly to his crime as “this cir­cum­stance” , instead of admit­ting what he’d done:

I am deeply sor­ry for the actions that result­ed in this cir­cum­stance… I made a mis­take for which I apol­o­gize to my fam­i­ly, my Ida­ho con­stituents and any oth­ers who have put their trust in me. I accept total respon­si­bil­i­ty and will deal with what­ev­er penal­ty comes my way in this mat­ter. I will also under­take mea­sures to ensure that this cir­cum­stance is nev­er repeated.

Dri­ving under the influ­ence in Vir­ginia is typ­i­cal­ly a Class 1 mis­de­meanor when an indi­vid­ual has a blood alco­hol con­tent below .15. The Old Domin­ion has one of the tough­est DUI laws in the coun­try, as Sen­a­tor Crapo is about to dis­cov­er. A con­vic­tion for a first-time DUI offense car­ries a max­i­mum fine of $2,500 (min­i­mum $250) and a one-year revo­ca­tion of the indi­vid­u­al’s license to dri­ve. (Oper­at­ing an auto­mo­bile in the Unit­ed States is a priv­i­lege, not a right).

Addi­tion­al­ly, Vir­ginia requires that those con­vict­ed of a DUI par­tic­i­pate in a manda­to­ry Alco­hol Safe­ty Action Pro­gram (ASAP). Pre­sum­ably, Sen­a­tor Crapo will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in Alexan­dri­a’s ASAP, once he for­mal­ly accepts respon­si­bil­i­ty for his behav­ior and pleads guilty to dri­ving under the influ­ence as he has implied he will.

At 43rd State Blues, reg­u­lar writer MeAndG’s reac­tion was pure snark:

Ida­ho:

One large land mass.
One small population.
One polit­i­cal par­ty filled with more screw-ups than you can fit in an aver­age class at the Bet­ty Ford Center.
Nice going!
Great fam­i­ly values!
Way to set an exam­ple for our children!

Mean­while, at Fort Boise, Tom van Alten called the DUI “not good pub­lic­i­ty”:

For­tu­nate­ly, no acci­dent and nobody hurt. And for­tu­nate­ly, he was prob­a­bly plan­ning to be in the area on Jan­u­ary 4 any­way. But nobody expect­ed Ida­ho’s senior Sen­a­tor to be mak­ing a court date in Alexan­dria to answer a D.U.I. charge. There’s the “staunch social and fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive” thing, which hard­ly immu­nizes one from slip­ping past 0.08, but being a bish­op of the Mor­mon Church is sup­posed to do that.

Crapo is indeed for­tu­nate that he was caught. Had he not been stopped by police, he might have caused harm to him­self or oth­ers by con­tin­u­ing to dri­ve while intox­i­cat­ed. Hope­ful­ly his arrest this week­end will result in him choos­ing to take a cab home or get a ride from a friend the next time he has a lot to drink at a party.

Or bet­ter yet, he can abide by the laws of his church — which he is sup­posed to be a leader of — and not con­sume alco­holic bev­er­ages at all.