Sen. Pat Wiggins-D, Santa Rose,
shocked onlookers in a packed committee hearing in Sacramento this week when she screamed repeatedly about a water canister that had gone unfilled and she appeared to advance threateningly toward another senator.
Only after security staff moved in and an aide for Wiggins intervened did the 69-year-old Santa Rosa Democrat end the tirade that lasted several minutes.
“It looked like she was going after another senator and totally disrupting the committee,” said a Senate staffer who witnessed the incident. “They tried to proceed as best as they could given the situation. It was pretty shocking.”
The episode, which occurred Wednesday during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, represented the latest disturbing outburst for Wiggins, whose odd behavior over the past two years has led to concern she is seriously ill.
The most recent incident of Wiggin’s strange behavior occurred at a meeting where the Wiggins wasn’t happy with the taxpayer provided water station.
Wiggins got up to refill her water glass but after finding the container empty began screaming, “When are you going to get that stupid stuff?” — apparently directing her ire at committee staff, according to the Senate staffer who witnessed the incident.
Wiggins also walked toward Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, in what some observers interpreted as a threatening gesture. A member of the Capitol security team moved behind Wolk, the Senate staffer said.
Senator Wiggins is, according to her staff, “suffering from a health problem,” although nobody in the Wiggins camp has so much as hinted what the health problem might be.
David Miller, the senator’s press aide, declined comment Thursday, but told the Sacramento Bee that it’s not “a secret that she (Wiggins) has a medical condition for which she’s being treated.”
Wiggins votes the party line so they want to keep her around and roll her out when they need her, crazy or not.