Senate GOP Infighting Continues

Leadership in the Arizona senate consists of seven positions. The most important is senate president. This office wields considerable power over the entire chamber by assigning bills to committee-- or not assigning them, which effectively kills them.

The political party with a majority of the seats elects the senate president at the start of each two-year term. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes campaigning for this seat of power. This year's senate president is Bob Burns (R-Glendale).

The senate president then hand picks the other three majority leadership positions. At the start of the session, Burns chose Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) as Senate Pro Tempore (sort of a vice president), Chuck Gray (R-Mesa) as Majority Leader (leads debate on the senate floor) and Pamela Gorman (R-Anthem) as Minority Whip (rounds up, coerces, and counts votes for bills).

[ L-R Pamela Gorman, Bob Burs, Chuck Gray... in better times? ]

Soon after the last ditch June 30th budget failed, senate president Burns ousted Verschoor as Pro Tempore, replacing him with freshman (first term) senator Steve Pierce (R-Prescott). Burns also took Pamela Gorman off the all-important Senate Appropriations committee (they appropriate money). Finally, he said he had a frank discussion with Chuck Gray, and that they had come to terms.

Fast forward one month.

Today, Senator Pamela Gorman "resigned" her leadership post as Minority Whip citing a "fractured GOP" and their reliance on a sales tax referendum to close the budget gap.

"I believe our ideological and philosophical differences on important issues like taxes and spending make it necessary for me to resign my position," Gorman, R-Anthem, said in an email addressed to Senate President Bob Burns and sent to all Senate members.

I type "resigned" because often these political maneuverings are actually "firings" but everyone involved looks better if the undesirable one resigns instead. Regardless, Gorman herself calls the majority party "fractured."

Anyone wanting to get a comment from senator (and presumably still Majority Leader) Chuck Gray on this development would have to dial the Princess Cruise Lines as Chuck is enjoying the cooler weather and reggae tunes of the Carribean this week.

Yes, he is on vacation leaving a $3 billion dollar budget behind for everyone else to figure out.

Senator Burns had asked Gray to reschedule the trip or return early from it. Senator Gray declined to change his travel plans.

Maybe Senator Gray will bring Burns (or all of us) a nice souvenoir from his trip.