What went on in the Republican vote for a new Senate President?

by David Safier

I'm going to use a blogger's prerogative to put information out there I can't say with absolute certainty is accurate. This is stuff I've heard bandied about concerning the election held by the Republican state senators' caucus which ended up choosing Steve Pierce to replace Russell Pearce as their president. It's similar to a story in the Republic, with a bit more detail thrown in.

Three candidates for Senate President were in the running: Andy Biggs, Steve Yarbrough and Steve Pierce. At first, Pierce was barely a blip, with 4 votes out of the total 21. Yarbrough had 7. Biggs was out in front with 10 votes, one away from a majority.

Biggs as the majority leader was about to call the caucus together to vote while two members who weren't in his camp were out of the state. That would have given him a 10-9 majority. The Yarbrough and Pierce supporters raised a fuss, and Biggs held off until everyone could be present.

The Yarbrough 7 and the Pierce 4 had to cut a deal to head off Biggs. Yarbrough had the obvious number advantage, but as often happens in these parliamentary-style negotiations, the slim minority got its way. Pierce supporters held firm, and the Yarbrough folks agreed to give way and vote for Pierce.

The final vote was 11 for Steve Pierce, 10 for Andy Biggs.

Basically, the Senate Rs were split between a pro-Biggs faction which wanted more of the same kind of Russell Pearce-style leadership, and the anti-Biggs faction which didn't want to see a continuation of the old regime. The Yarbrough folks were so adamantly against continuing the craziest-of-the-crazy-base status quo, every single one of them was willing to switch their votes to Pierce. Not one of them jumped ship.

It's hard to say exactly what this will mean for the next legislative session. There could be less truly vile legislation pushed through the Senate, especially on immigration, which is where Steve Pierce split from Russell Pearce. Depending on the personalities in the two groups (Biggs apparently was fuming when the dust from the election settled), this could cause some dissention which will slow their agenda, or they may just push on with their economic agenda regardless. Without all the immigration baggage, some of the "moderate Republicans" (a term I have to put in quotes) could be more reelectable.

In a related bit of information, apparently the tongue lashing Jerry Lewis took from some members of the caucus — ardent Russell Pearce supporters, Antenori among them (here are some choice quotes from Angry Frank on the subject of Lewis) — went on for two hours and included language from the "family values" folks not suitable for family publications. Biggs, who was in charge, let the vulgarities continue.

As I said at the beginning, I can't vouch for the absolute accuracy of the information here. If you have anything to add, the comments line is wide open.