Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, recently disparaged a certain newspaper opinion piece as “almost beneath contempt.” Though he didn’t identify the piece, he was clearly referring to a Bulletin editorial headlined “Bridge bill is Salem at its worst — a ‘retirement gift’ for a lawmaker, a bad deal for Bend residents.”

We take Esquivel’s contempt as a compliment.

Esquivel’s hissy fit had its origins in a Feb. 8 public hearing on House Bill 4029, which would prohibit the construction of a footbridge over the Deschutes River adjacent to Bend. The bill is what’s known as a committee bill, as it does not include the name of a sponsor who, presumably, would take responsibility for introducing it. Reliance upon anonymous committee bills is one way in which lawmakers hide important information about the legislative process from taxpayers and constituents.

Usually.

While talking to a colleague following the conclusion of the public hearing, Salem Democrat Brian Clem, the committee chair, called the anonymous bill a retirement gift for Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver. The comment was picked up by a nearby microphone, though the video of the public hearing posted on the Oregon Legislature’s website ended just before Clem uttered what he now refers to as a joke.

The soon-to-be-retired Whisnant doesn’t sit on Clem’s committee. But midway through last year’s session, Clem allowed Whisnant to introduce the bridge ban by “gutting and stuffing” one of Clem’s bills. Whisnant didn’t notify the Bend Park & Recreation District that he’d be doing this even though the bill was intended to kill a project the district had long planned to complete.

Whisnant’s gut-and-stuff job sailed through the House, then died in the Senate following some much-needed scrutiny. What Whisnant and others initially characterized as a piece of environmental legislation turned out to be the handiwork of wealthy homeowners near the bridge site, including a prominent supporter of Bend Republican Knute Buehler, who also inveighed against the bridge. To push the green narrative, anti-bridge NIMBYs even cooked up a phony baloney environmental group called the Upper Deschutes Conservation Council to suggest widespread, institutional backing.

Following Rep. Clem’s telling hot-mic moment, we wrote an editorial recounting Whisnant’s sausage-making and arguing that the way in which business is sometimes done in Salem — committee bills, favors for friends, etc. — is remarkably bad for the taxpayers who lawmakers like Clem and Whisnant are supposed to serve.

Apparently, the editorial hit its mark. During a Feb. 15 work session on HB 4029, Clem decided to address the retirement-gift comment “that some of the newspapers got all excited about.” He called the comment both “shorthand” and a “joke” and said that Whisnant didn’t ask him for the gift, er, bill. He didn’t exactly deny it was a favor and, in fact, said of Whisnant, “I certainly have learned to try and defer to his judgment in his district.”

It’s at this point that Esquivel expressed his contempt.

Like Whisnant, Esquivel has announced his intention to retire from the Legislature. In anticipation of that day, we figured we’d put together a short quiz in his honor. It’s very short and consists of one question: Which of these is more deserving of contempt?

A. Trying to hustle a bill sought by well-connected NIMBYs through the Legislature by means of a gut-and-stuff and, when that fails, resurrecting it as an anonymous bill that is a retirement gift for Rep. Gut and Stuff himself.

B. Reporting and opining about the distasteful and secret process by which some legislators like to make their sausage.

If you answered “B,” you may be qualified to succeed Rep. Esquivel.