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State bar: a short walk from the Capitol, down a few limestone steps, one of those mythic places where the wheels of government are greased. Buy you a drink, Senator?

Article Excerpt
THE LIMESTONE STEPS leading to the Cloak Room, a bar in the basement of Austin's 117-year-old Goodman Building, descend from a spot barely thirty paces from the west lawn of the state capitol building. They are marked only by a small sign tucked behind a crape myrtle and a hand pointing the way down that is painted on the wall above the top step, quiet indicators of the final leg of the shortest walk to a public watering hole that a politico has during the five months the Legislature convenes in Austin. It's a hike many elected officials, their staffs, and the lobbyists who woo them are only too happy to take. In the early weeks of a legislative session, the Cloak Room is a place to renew old friendships and make new ones, where add-ons to the session's expanded staffs can visit with lawmakers freshly arrived in Austin, and they can all share a drink with the lobbyists who will be seeking their favor in the coming months.

But as the session wears on, as Capitol business starts running into the night and the Austin heat starts having its fun with people who have chosen careers that require pantyhose and suits, the bar becomes something more. Then, it's a place where a lobbyist who just watched her bill die in committee can buy a member a drink and feel like she's gotten something accomplished on an otherwise dismal day. It's where a senator's chief of staff, dressed down that morning for misspeaking to the press, might finally get the phone number of a girl in the Speaker's office he's had a crush on all session. It's where D's can go to gripe about R's, where staff can go to gripe about the boss, and where the lot of them can gather-at least about fifty at a time--to celebrate or lament another day at the Lege. In the words of lobbyist Robert Johnson, one of a handful of people willing to talk about the Cloak Room and let his name appear in print: "It's a place where you can drink a beer with somebody and apologize for having to stick a bill up his rear end that day. It's where you prove that it's nothing personal."

It's a cozy spot in which to do k, a narrow room with five stools and video poker at the bar on the left, and a row of tables and video golf against the wall on the right. There are mirrors and polished, dark-brown wood paneling on the walls. An architectural drawing of the Capitol hangs on the wall across from the bar. Two televisions show legislative proceedings when the chambers are meeting and sports when they're not, but their sound is mostly drowned out by a jukebox and the rolling chatter of serious drinkers. It's impossibly dark and smoky, even when the door is left open on a sunny afternoon.

When the room is packed with its mid-session, white-collar crowd, it looks like the quintessential dealmaking, smoke-filled back room....

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