Thursday, November 9th, 2006...9:42 pm
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
The House Democratic caucus re-elected Phil Lopes as minority leader. They also elected Jack Brown, a long time moderate-to-conservative legislator from St. Johns, as assistant minority leader and Phoenix Representative Steve Gallardo as minority whip.
The caucus will have somewhere between 25 and 27 members (depending on where uncounted votes end up), which is the largest Democratic house caucus since the 1970’s. This opens up many chances for Democratic members if they are smart and play their cards right.
On the Republican side, there are some odd developments. Jim Weiers, who was only narrowly re-elected to his house seat, was selected by his Republican colleagues to be their leader, and presumptively the Speaker of the House. However, there is trouble brewing.
Normally, the election of Speaker by the full membership is a formality: the Republicans naturally have the 31 votes necessary to elect their leader Speaker. Even someone that didn’t get a unanimous vote in caucus would have had at least 31 votes there and other members of the party would fall in line for the floor vote since that person would inevitably win.
Well, as it turns out Weiers didn’t get 31 votes in the caucus, at least not 31 that can vote for him on the floor (I’ll get to that). He had enough votes to be elected Speaker, but folks that were privy to the goings on in that closed door meeting say that the more conservative Andy Biggs had enough votes to keep his total under 31.
The Biggs candidacy was driven by a couple of things. First of all, there has been some disatisfaction from conservatives that Weiers is too friendly with some Democrats. But the thing that has really fueled opposition to him is his leadership style, which some see as overbearing.
An example of this was at the meeting yesterday. Weiers was worried that he did not have the votes to be re-elected, so he cajoled the caucus into allowing members that had been defeated to vote on leadership. Members whose elections are in doubt are often allowed to vote, but allowing members who are obviously not going to serve in the next session is a crossing a line.
So, what happens in January? Do the rebel members fall back in line and vote for Weiers? Do they line up with the newly empowered Democrats to agree on a comprimise candidate? Who would that be?
5 Comments
November 9th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
If the Republicans who didn’t want Weiers wanted Biggs, why would they team up with the Dems to compromise on someone presumably more progressive than either Biggs or Weiers? Or do they just distrust Weiers enough that they’re willing to vote for, say, a Konopnicki just to get rid of him?
November 10th, 2006 at 9:04 am
The Democrats had 27 House members in 1992.
November 10th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Biggs and Weiers?
These are the choices?
(sigh)
Having Andy as Speaker is as close as Eddie (Farmsworth) will ever get to it again.
November 10th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Ted,
Which members that are “obviously not going to serve in the next session” were allowed to vote in the meeting? I know two members whose races were up in the air were allowed in, but one was slightly leading and another was only down by 8 votes. Since the meeting, both are leading by 100-plus.
November 10th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Sorry for the double-post, but I also wanted to add that, just because the more conservative Republicans didn’t support Weiers in the caucus doesn’t mean they won’t support him on the floor in January. The organizational meeting is done to determine who the caucus - as an entity - will support.
If any group were to conceivably split from the group, it would be the moderate Republicans, not the ultra-conservatives that supported Biggs over Weiers in Wednesday’s meeting. They will all fall in line and elect Weiers speaker come January 8.
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