The Arizona Capitol Times is reporting (subscription required) that Andy Biggs (R-Gilbert) has defeated Steve Pierce (R-Prescott) for the presidency of the Arizona Senate.
This wasn't a total surprise as GOP's bat-shit crazy wing (which these days is ascendant in their party) signaled its displeasure with Pierce when the Pinal and Maricopa county GOP executive boards passed resolutions urging the ouster of Pierce for not being sufficiently worshipful of said wing of the GOP.
They also urged the ouster of House Speaker Andy Tobin (R-Paulden), but he stood off the challenge.
While this almost certainly means that Senate will remain radical (in spite of the Ds breaking of the R supermajority of the last session), there is a silver lining here for Democrats and Independents: the continued lunacy of the lege should give them a unifying issue in the 2014 elections.
Speculation (on my part, anyway :) ) is that this is just the first salvo in a GOP civil war between disgraced former senate president Russell Pearce and his acolytes on one side and the shrinking not-bat-shit-crazy/Chamber of Commerce wings of the AZGOP on the other.
The AZGOP will hold its biannual reorganization meeting in January (probably in a church); bring your popcorn, and your body armor. It's going to be entertaining, but they will leave blood on the floor.
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