The National Council of State Legislatures must offer some pretty serious vacation time if they managed to convince Senator Pam Gorman to jump on board.
Gorman was named chairwoman of the National Conference of State Legislatures last week, leaving us scratching our heads and wondering, "This can't be the same Pam Gorman who has held up a budget solution for the last two months, and then pissed and moaned about vacation time, can it?"
Well, it is.
"With the startling direction this Congress is taking, it is more
important than ever for state lawmakers to be active in organizations
such as NCSL where states' rights are a priority," Gorman says in a press release. "I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the state of
Arizona through my position with NCSL."
Gorman, in case anyone forgot, is the woman who, after a month of refusing to budge on a budget plan that included a 1-cent sales tax increase, abdicated her throne as senate majority whip.
After leaving the Senate floor in a Huff, Gorman disappeared on what
was later dubbed a "Midwest vacation," in the final heat of the budget
battle.
After leaders in the Senate couldn't get a hold of the wayward legislator to vote on a new budget plan, and in response to a New Times reader's e-mail, Gorman called the reader a fool, and defended her disappearing act by saying she is a part-time employee, and entitled to a vacation.
Hopefully, the trips to D.C. to take on her new roll with the NCSL will satisfy Gorman's travel bug, and she can spend the rest of her (part) time in Arizona actually legislating.