January 31. 2010

Washington state Sen. Pam Roach likes guns—really big guns via Pam Roach Report blog

   ::: One of the most right wing of several such Republican senators in the Washington state senate has been banned from participating in the GOP caucus. Sen. Pam Roach (R-31) will not be able to enter the party’s caucus room at the capitol or participate in any of the caucus’s offsite meeting, Seattle Times reports. A letter sent last week by the caucus to Roach says she has “demonstrated an ongoing pattern of treating your co-workers and employees with hostility and anger. As your fellow Senators, it is difficult to be in a room with you when you erupt in anger. For our employees it is unacceptable.” The letter recommends that Roach get anger-management therapy. Although it’s never been one of her primary issues, Roach—who was first elected in 1990—has always been a reliable anti-gay vote in the senate. She consistently received the lowest possible rating—0 out of 5—from a Seattle group that rated election candidates for their receptiveness to LGBT-rights issues. In 2007, Roach was one of nine Republicans and two Democrats who sponsored a bill calling for a constitutional amendment to redefine marriage as an exclusive right for opposite-sex couples. Roach told the Times Friday that senate GOP leadership “wants to persecute me”. In her blog, Roach celebrates Tea-Party members and cites as her main issues expansion of “gun rights” and attacks on the state’s Child Protective Services.

    ::: The head of a notorious anti-gay group in Michigan has announced that he’ll try to make gender identification on driver’s licenses an issue in this year’s party-nomination and general-election campaigns to succeed Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, who is leaving office because of term limits. The office sets the policy that determines when and if a person can change the gender designation on his or her driver's license, Grand Rapids Press reports. Since 2005, Land has allowed the gender designation on a license to be changed for a person who submits a court order or a doctor's statement that shows a gender transition was complete. But Gary Glenn, head of Michigan’s American Family Association, said last week that he’ll ask all candidates for the office if they would change those rules if elected. Glenn wants the next secretary of state to deny all gender-change requests. Already, one Republican candidate for the office, Paul Scott, has said he would make it a “top priority” to deny gender-change requests. Other candidates—both Republicans and Democrats—told the Press that the current rules work just fine.