Gil Cedillo has changed

Times columnist Hector Tobar picks up on the paper's look at state Sen. Gil Cedillo's lavish spending on restaurants, hotels and gifts and says "it's never been a better time to be a Latino politico in Los Angeles."

In the beginning, they gathered at Steven's Steak House in unglamorous Commerce, where waiters in bow ties served them good sirloin on vinyl tablecloths. Today, they perch high above the traffic downtown, enjoying business chic and $13 mojitos at the Standard Hotel....

They were the sons of working people and they knew they were a minority but felt they deserved a place at the table. Now they're practically running the entire city and state -- or so it seems sometimes -- and the world is their oyster.

With power comes temptation. Sometimes it arrives in the form of a beautiful woman. More often, it's simply proximity to the great money tree of politics and the serpents who keep inviting them to eat of the tree's fruit.

There's a lot of buzz in local political circles, and some cackling, about the Cedillo revelations.