Senate votes to censure Wendy Rogers for threatening her colleagues

JEREMY DUDA | AZ MIRROR

In the wake of her speech to a white nationalist conference and a string of offensive and inflammatory social media posts, the Arizona Senate voted to censure Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers.

The Senate voted 24-3 in a rare censure of one of its own, with 11 of the chamber’s 16 Republicans siding with the chamber’s 13 Democratic members who were in attendance. Rogers voted no, as did GOP Sens. Nancy Barto and Warren Petersen.

The censure, which has no practical effect, was for comments calling for people she perceived as enemies to be hanged from gallows, and for social media postings Rogers made threatening to “personally destroy” fellow Republicans who sought to punish her. The censure resolution was silent on her embrace of white nationalists and a string of antisemitic and racist things she had posted online in recent days.

Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican, didn’t defend or even address her comments on the Senate floor. Instead, she called the censure an attempt to limit her freedom of speech.

“I represent hundreds of thousands of people and the majority of them are with me. And they want me to be their voice. You are really censuring them. I do not apologize. I will not back down. And I am sorely disappointed in the leadership of this body for colluding with the Democrats to attempt to destroy my reputation,” Rogers said. “In the end, I rejoice in knowing I do and say what is right. And I speak as a free American, regardless of the actions of this corrupted process today.”

However, Senate President Karen Fann said the censure wasn’t about freedom of speech.

“We do support First Amendment freedom of speech. We absolutely support it. We fight battles over it. But what we do not condone is members threatening each other, to ruin each other, to incite violence, to call us communists. We don’t do that to each other,” said Fann, a Prescott Republican. “We, as elected officials, are held to a higher standard.”

Sen. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma, noted that Rogers referred to freedom of speech as “one of the most precious rights we have under heaven.”

“My message to you is, that is not freedom of speech. That is bullying and dehumanization. And that is below hell,” Otondo said.

Some Republican senators expressed hope that, despite what they saw as the necessity of the vote, the Senate’s members could continue their work together through the rest of the legislative session. Sen. Vince Leach,

R-Tucson, compared the Senate to a family dealing with a disruption.

“I would hope beyond hope that, once this is done, that our family gets back together, that we go back to work and complete the work that we were sent here to do,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray expressed similar sentiments, urging his colleagues to consider the policy, not the sponsor, when they vote on legislation.

“I do want to make clear to everybody that I am opposed to the kind of rhetoric that we’ve heard. But, as a senator, I also separate personality from policy. And I hope all in this body will do the same thing,” said Gray, a Sun City Republican.

Republicans have only a 16-14 majority in the Senate, meaning Rogers could block any GOP bill that doesn’t have Democratic support from passing.

Rogers spoke to the white nationalist America First Political Action Conference on Feb. 25. She called for gallows to be built so “high-level criminals” and “traitors who have betrayed our country” can be publicly hanged. She also unleashed a torrent of antisemitic tropes on social media over the weekend earlier this week, and voiced overt support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

After Gray publicly stated on Monday that discussions were underway about a possible censure, Rogers threatened retaliation against any GOP colleagues who joined the effort, writing on social media, “I will personally destroy the career of any Republican who partakes in the gaslighting of me simply because of the color of my skin or opinion about a war I don’t want to send our kids to die in.”

Following the vote, Rogers was far from chastened. On Twitter and Telegram, she defended herself and blasted the censure motion, which she summarized as the Senate

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