Internal squabble riles Senate GOP

OLYMPIA – Only days after leaving Olympia, Senate Republicans are feuding among themselves, with one lawmaker accused of demanding vows of loyalty from staffers and another allegedly pointing his rear end at a critic during a recent meeting.

Caucus leaders are clearly not happy at the public clash during a major election cycle.

“This was an internal matter that needed to be taken care of internally,” said Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, on Monday blasted Senate Republican leaders, saying they were attempting to “muzzle” her for criticizing their planning and fundraising in an important election year.

“Our leadership is a disaster,” Roach wrote in an e-mail to reporters. “We offer no plan for regaining the majority, we have no money to support viable candidates and now we attack our own.”

Part of that attack, she said, happened at a recent meeting of Senate Republicans. She said Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, screamed at her, lifted his jacket tails and pointed his behind at her. (Apparently the gesture came with an invitation to either kiss or kick his behind; lawmakers’ and staffers’ accounts differ.)

Hewitt has been recuperating from a medical procedure and staffers said he couldn’t respond. But Schoesler and other Republican leaders say Roach is merely trying to distract attention from the real issue: her problems with Senate Republican staff.

In response to a records request, the Senate on Thursday released a two-page letter spelling out an “adjusted protocol” intended to shield Senate staff from Roach. She was monopolizing their time, it said, and creating “an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”

“Listening to (Roach) recount past perceived slights by current (legislative) members, former members, Leadership, lobbyists and party leaders – among others – is not an acceptable use of staff time,” says the document, marked “confidential.”

Also, it says, Roach has asked staffers “to state their personal loyalties lie with” her, above and beyond their loyalty to the caucus or other senators.

The document orders Roach not to talk to or e-mail Republican caucus staffers. Instead, any requests must be handled by her legislative assistant.

Schoesler said that Hewitt doesn’t bully or browbeat anyone. He said the restrictions were intended to maintain a positive work environment.

“It’s unfortunate that Sen. Roach took it to a different level and tried to change the debate,” Schoesler said.

But Roach’s friend and political ally Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, came to her defense, according to an e-mail obtained Thursday by the Tacoma News-Tribune. In it, Benton said Hewitt “screamed uncontrollably” at him and Roach during the meeting. (Benton could not be reached for comment Thursday.)

Pointing his rear at Roach might be seen as comical by some, Benton wrote in the e-mail. However, “If this same behavior is demonstrated toward lobbyists who disagree with (Hewitt), it is no wonder we have trouble raising funds for our caucus,” he said.

Benton also said Senate Republicans – outnumbered nearly two to one by Democrats – are in dire straits and doing little to fix the problem. The caucus is overspending on ineffective fundraising, he said.

Schoesler, chairman of the Senate Republican campaign committee, said he’d like the fundraising to be going better. But he defended last year’s spending, saying “there’s a lot of things that go into laying the groundwork for successful campaigns.”

Roach, meanwhile, has flown to Honduras, where she’s working with a school. She did, however, call a Seattle talk-radio show Thursday, insisting she’d been wronged. She said no staffers had complained to her, nor had anyone filed a complaint.

She did acknowledge to KIRO radio host Dave Ross that she made an obscene gesture to Hewitt after the rear-end incident “because he sort of asked for it.”

This isn’t Roach’s first run-in with her caucus. In 2003 she was reprimanded by a Senate committee for creating a hostile work environment when she tried to force a confrontation with an aide in front of several reporters and made repeated attempts to have the aide fired from another job at the Senate.

Roach received a similar letter about violating workplace respect policies in 1999.

Schoesler maintains that the public dust-up won’t affect Republicans’ chances to regain some Senate seats this year.

“It boils down to the issues that we care about, not about personalities,” he said. “This doesn’t change the budget deficit” or other election-year liabilities for Democrats, he said.

“All of the bad stuff is still there,” he said, “and we’re going to continue to campaign on a positive agenda.”