PHOENIX — State senators decided Tuesday to do something they haven’t done in decades: censure one of their own.
By a 24-3 margin lawmakers voted to censure Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, for “conduct unbecoming of a Senator.”
The specifics included “publicly issuing and promoting social media and video messaging encouraging violence against and punishment of American citizens.” All that flows from her recent activities, including a speech to a white supremacist group late last month.
But the resolution also made reference to her last-ditch effort to avoid being censured, with Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray, R-Sun City, noting a Twitter post threatening “political destruction” of those who disagree with her views.
In a floor speech, Rogers lashed out, calling the action an attack on her First Amendment rights.
“I do not apologize,” she said. “I will not back down.”
Rogers also claimed the “hundreds of thousands of people” she represents are “with me and they want me to be their voice.”
And she accused Senate GOP leadership of “colluding with Democrats” in the attack.
But Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, said that’s not the case.
“This is not a Democratic or a Republican thing,” she said, saying every lawmaker makes his or her own decision.
Fann also said this isn’t about interfering with anyone’s free speech rights, saying she and other lawmakers fully support First Amendment rights.
“But what we do not condone is members threatening each other to ruin each other, to incite violence, to call us communists,” she said. “We do not do that to each other.”
Aside from the threat, Rogers tried other tactics to convince colleagues to vote against the move.
For example, she directed a Twitter post to Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, pointing out she supported his measure to greatly expand eligibility for vouchers of state funds for parents to use at private, parochial and home schooling. Boyer was not impressed.
“So, I should stay silent on your unhinged speeches and tweets, Wendy Rogers, because you once voted for one of my bills?” he responded. “No thanks.”
Just hours before the scheduled vote, Rogers told followers that “today is the day where we find out if the communists in the GOP throw the sweet grandma under the bus for being white.”
But Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Rios, D-Phoenix, said Rogers’ public face belies that description.
“When somebody shows you who they are, believe them,” she said, saying Rogers “has proudly shown us who she is.”
“It’s not a sweet grandmother,” Rios said. “It’s someone who has gleefully called white nationalists ‘patriots,’ called for hanging political enemies, called (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy a globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons.”
The record of her actions was apparently too much for her colleagues to accept.
The first talks of censure followed Rogers’ Feb. 25 speech to the America First Political Action Conference, a group of white nationalists, where she said “we need to build more gallows.”
“If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them and use a newly built set of gallows, it’ll make an example of these traitors who have betrayed our country,” she said.
She also praised Nick Fuentes who hosted the conference who opened it with seeking applause from the crowd for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, said that, if nothing else, elected officials should not be speaking to such groups.
Rogers also has made her feelings clear about the war, Soros and Zelenskyy. Both Zelenskyy and Soros are Jewish. Her comments about them came after Vladimir Putin said he was invading to promote “the demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
And when the Anti-Defamation League, in a posting, asked Gov. Doug Ducey to condemn her “anti-Semitic, racist, violent language,” she responded, “Oh shaddup.”
But much of what Rogers is about is not new.
“I like Indians and I like Redskins,” she tweeted last summer amid discussions about whether certain team names and advertising images were racist. “I like Aunt Jemima and I like Uncle Ben.”
Rogers also proclaimed her affinity for Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. And just this past January, on Martin Luther King Jr. day, she retweeted a posting urging people to “celebrate” Confederate generals.
Sen. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma, derided Rogers’ claim that lawmakers were interfering with her First Amendment rights.
“Freedom of speech does not give you the right to be a bully, to dehumanize people,” she said. “It does not allow you to have slander, many other things.”
Sen. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, who supported the motion, said it would have been nice had there been a way to settle the issue in a “family discussion.”
But he said that isn’t possible, as there are no parents who can impose discipline. And that, Leach said, requires all the members to consider the greater well-being of the Senate.
“The body comes first, the unit comes first,” he said, calling it “a terrible vote to have to take.”
The action by the Senate stands in sharp contrast to those of Ducey himself.
He was asked just last week, after many of the senator’s comments had been widely circulated, whether he regretted having his political action committee put $500,000 into the 2020 election to help Rogers.
Ducey said his concerns are different.
“What I need as a governor are governing majorities,” he responded, noting Rogers provides the crucial 16th Republican vote in the 30-member chamber.
“So that’s what I’ve wanted to do, is move my agenda forward,” the governor said. “I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish and (Rogers) is still better than her (Democratic) opponent Felicia French.”
Rogers, in response, tweeted, “Thank you, Governor.”
But Ducey had a decidedly different take following the Senate vote.
“Anti-Semitic and hateful language has no place in Arizona,” he said in a prepared statement. “I believe the vote taken today by the Arizona Senate sends a clear message: rhetoric like this is unacceptable.”
And the governor late Tuesday took a slap at Rogers’ statements about Ukraine saying “any statement supporting Russia’s action in Ukraine is not only ill-advised, but wrong and dangerous.”
The Senate vote comes a day after two Maricopa County supervisors, both Republicans, condemned Rogers for what they said is her “hateful rhetoric.” Bill Gates and Clint Hickman also called her out for apologizing for Putin and condemning U.S. allies.”
There is no record of the Senate censuring a member for at least four decades, an action that takes only a simple majority.
Senators did vote to expel Sen. Carolyn Walker, D-Phoenix, in 1991.
Walker was one of 11 lawmakers caught up in what was dubbed “AzScam,” taking money from someone posing as a lobbyist to get them to vote to legalize casino gaming in Arizona. All the others resigned; it took a two-thirds vote to oust Walker.
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