(Hat Tip: From Zelph at AZ Netroots.)When we last left Sen. Jack Harper he was at a preliminary meeting of the Senate Ethics Committee to decide the ground rules of the hearing for the ethics complaint filed against him by Sen. Ken Cheuvront for cutting the mikes of Sen. Cheuvront and Sen. Paula Aboud during an attempted filibuster. Sen. Cheuvront contends this was a violation of Senate rules, Harper claims it was a mistake, even though he apparently bragged about how he broke the Democrats filibuster afterwards. Sen. Chervront said on Equality Arizona Radio this past Saturday that it appeared that Sen. Verschoor, Sen. Huppenthal and Sen. Harper conspired beforehand to cut off the mikes in order to break the filibuster that he and Sen. Aboud were engaging in.
It was decided at the preliminary hearing that no witnesses will be allowed to testify other than Sen. Harper and Sen. Cheuvront, so we'll likely never be able to determine the extent of the involvement of Huppenthal and Verschoor. Testimony will, however, be under oath and subject to perjury. The ethics committee is comprised of three Republicans (Chairman Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, Sen. Barbara Leff, and Sen. Robert Blendu) and two Democrats(Sen. Ben Miranda and Sen. Marsha Arzberger). It looks like the deck is stacked. Don't expect this complaint to go any further. Once again, Republicans in the State Legislature have made a mockery of the rules and will get away with it.
The next meeting of the Senate Ethics Committee will be held on Tuesday, August 12 at 1:00 p.m. These hearings are open to the public. If you can't be there to watch this circus live, you can watch the video here. Just click on the camera icon shortly before 1:00 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment