Local News

by Hank Plante
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― State Sen. Carole Migden, who triggered a chain-reaction accident at an intersection in Fairfield last week, disclosed Wednesday that she has leukemia and said daily chemotherapy pills she takes may have contributed to causing the crash.

"I can only attribute it to a medical event... something that might be related to the powerful drug combinations I take everyday to stay alive," Migden, 56, told CBS 5 Political Editor Hank Plante in an interview.

The California Highway Patrol said Migden's erratic driving prompted emergency calls from a half-dozen drivers as she bounced off a highway retaining wall minutes before slamming into the rear of another vehicle last Friday. Migden's crash sent a woman - Ellen Butawan, herself a cancer patient - and her 3-year-old child to the emergency room.

"I don't recall much of that drive," Migden, a Democrat from San Francisco, told CBS 5. "I have no explanation. I don't recall that I hit a median."

Migden said she plans to have neurological tests conducted to try to determine exactly what happened.

When Migden rear-ended the Honda Civic along Highway 12 at Beck Avenue last Friday, she was driving too fast, the CHP said Wednesday, specifically citing "speed too fast for conditions," and "failing to slow or stop for slowing traffic ahead."

The CHP said it will pass its findings onto the Solano County District Attorney's office and recommend the D.A. charge Migden with an infraction for driving too fast for road conditions.

Sgt. Wulf Corrington said the CHP is still investigating several witnesses' statements that Migden was drove
recklessly from the Carquinez Bridge all the way to the Highway 12 accident scene. She faces possible misdemeanor charges for reckless driving, Corrington said.

Migden's 2007 Toyota Highlander also struck a guardrail in the center median on Interstate 80 near American Canyon Road that day, Corrington said. The CHP determined she made an unsafe turning movement but does not intend to recommend any charges be filed in that incident, Corrington said.

Corrington added that Migden did not make any statements to officers at the Beck Avenue accident scene regarding medications she might have been taking and no medications were openly visible in her Highlander.

Migden told CBS 5 that she was diagnosed with cancer a decade ago and has been battling it ever since. She said doctors told her in February of this year that she was cancer-free, but she still takes six chemotherapy pills a day.

She said last week's apparent blackout at the wheel was the first time her medicine has caused that type of reaction.

The senator's offering that her cancer medication may be to blame for the crash marked a departure from the explanation initially offered by her staff.

Migden's staff had said she was reaching for a ringing cell phone and took her eyes off the road when the crash occurred. Investigators said tests at the time showed alcohol wasn't involved.

Ironically, Migden had voted last year for a law that takes effect in July 2008 requiring drivers to use a headset or other hands-free device when talking on a cell phone while driving.

Two motorists who followed Migden off the highway on the day of the crash berated her for her erratic driving. Migden responded by telling the drivers, "You can't talk to me like that, I'm a state senator," said Bob Jordan, a Turlock resident whose van was hit by Butawan's car in the chain reaction crash.

"She was kind of wobbly. She didn't seem alert. She was not acting normally," Jordan added.

The collision was the latest incident in Migden's sometimes stormy political career.

The 58-year-old New York City transplant is a hard-nosed liberal with a brusk style who has had run-ins with other politicians, constituents, political consultants and staff members.

"There are very few people in San Francisco politics who cannot tell you a Carole story," said Eric Jaye, a San Francisco political consultant. "All have the same punch line: That she outdid even herself in terms of anger and the provocation that set it off."

He said Migden's announcement that she had leukemia might explain her behavior.

"At least now there's a public excuse for her behavior," he said. "Things make more sense now. Her erratic behavior seems at times as if there was a medical basis for it."

In another incident, Migden shocked other legislators in the final hectic days of the 2005 session by walking onto the Assembly floor and pushing the voting button of a Republican lawmaker while he was away from his desk.

The GOP legislator's seatmate quickly erased the vote, holding up passage of one of Migden's bills. The measure required cosmetics manufacturers to reveal whether their products contain cancer-causing ingredients.

The bill eventually passed, but Migden's action may have cost her the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee. She stepped down from that powerful post two months after the voting incident, saying she wanted to devote more time to helping then-state Controller Steve Westly run for governor.

Last year, in another incident in the Assembly, Migden marched over to a Democratic lawmaker's desk and flipped up his microphone, indicating she wanted him to respond to criticism by conservative Republicans of a gay pride ceremony.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, a fellow San Francisco liberal who has announced plans to run against Migden next year in the Democratic primary, said the traffic incident was part of a "pattern of behavior of someone who believes she need not play by the rules."

"Her behavior does her constituents a disservice because it disrespects them and undermines her effectiveness," he said.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said Migden can be brusk and impulsive.

"But my experience with her is that inside she has such decent values and such a good, progressive soul," she added. "She is one of the few people you can count on to understand why it is important to protect people from discrimination, including economic discrimination. She has been one of the most effective legislators I have worked with."

Migden has carried a number of major bills in her nearly eight-and-a-half years in the California Legislature, including the measure that allowed gay couples to register as domestic partners and subsequent bills that increased those couples' legal rights.

Migden was the second openly gay candidate elected to the Legislature after Kuehl.

She also has carried legislation to help farm workers organize unions, require food products made from cloned animals to carry warning labels, require large employers to provide their workers with health insurance, provide emergency contraception to rape victims, curb predatory lending practices, allow patients denied medical treatments to sue their HMOs and provide funding to preserve the Headwaters redwood forest.

(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)