Video: GOP lawmaker’s rape question derails Arizona Senate hearing

As far as polite conversation goes, questions about vaginas, anuses and rape probably fall a good bit short. Monday at the Arizona Legislature, one such question caused quite a ruckus.

The incident took place during a meeting of the Arizona Senate’s Military Affairs and Border Security Committee. Members of the public had packed the hearing room to express their displeasure with a number of Republican-pushed immigration bills, particularly one from far-right state Sen. Wendy Rogers that would set aside $20 million essentially to pay towns to build their own border walls.

Immigration activist Albert Rivera, who has also pushed for continued court oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, was one of those who spoke against the bill. Standing at a microphone, the 20-year-old argued that the money allocated in Rogers’ bill should be spent on other issues facing the state, calling the bill a “waste of time” and “un-American to the core.” He also accused lawmakers of caring only “about following the Trump agenda.” 

Rivera had said his piece and moved away from the microphone when GOP state Sen. Janae Shamp, a red “Trump Was Right About Everything” Stanley tumbler in front of her, summoned him back to answer a particularly graphic question.

“Sir,” Shamp began, “do you know what it’s like to be in the operating room with a 23-year-old woman who’s been tied to a tree and raped so much you can’t tell the difference between her vigina and her anus. Do you know what that looks like?”

While Shamp didn’t name the woman, Rivera and many in the room assumed she was speaking about the murder of 22-year-old Augusta University student Laken Riley by an undocumented man who had entered the country illegally. Riley’s death has been used by many Republicans as a talking point to clamp down on illegal immigration. Notably, as many on the right have pointed out ad nauseam, Riley’s killer was caught and released by border agents after entering the country illegally, suggesting a lack of border wall may not have been the problem.

It was an odd question, but Rivera mustered a response.

“I feel sorry for that woman who died, and by no means am I trying to justify anything that that guy did. It was horrible what he did,” Rivera told Shamp. But, he added, “the fact that you continue to use that as an excuse is disgusting.”

Shamp began to ask another question after saying, “That’s not what I was referring to.” But Rivera began to walk away again as others in the hearing room told him he didn’t need to engage in a graphic tit-for-tat with Shamp that had little to do with his testimony.

Then things boiled over.

GOP state Sen. David Gowan, the committee’s chairperson, piped up and pointed at Rivera, telling him that he needed “to stand at that podium” and answer Shamp’s questions. Democratic state Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, who had voiced an objection to Shamp’s original question, then stood up and said Rivera didn’t need to answer any questions at all. Rivera, still standing by the podium, asked Gowan, “Are you trying to intimidate me here?”

Gowan said Rivera either needed to answer Shamp’s question or “he can stand all the way out of the committee” room. He then turned to Gonzales and told her to sit down. Putting her hands on her hips, Gonzales refused. Gowan asked her if “you’re going to disobey the chair,” at which point Gonzales demanded that the Senate’s rules attorney be called into the room to weigh in on just what the chair can do.

Gowan maintained that Rivera needed to answer Shamp’s question or leave. Rivera took Option B, watching the rest of the hearing from the lobby. Last week, Rivera decided to leave the a hearing of the same committee, over another slate of anti-immigration bills, after another activist was kicked out for a disruption.

The rules attorney finally arrived and sided with Gowan, saying it is “appropriate for him to keep decorum however he sees necessary” and that it’s “up to the chairman” if Gonzales could stand or not. The rules attorney also said the Gowan could compel a member of the public to either answer a question from a senator or leave. 

Gonzales expressed her disapproval, saying, “It is not right to make members of the public answer any questions that they do not want to answer.” She asked for a vote to appeal Gowan’s answer-or-leave directive but was shot down by Gowan.

At that point, Democratic Sens. Catherine Miranda and Kiana Sears and more than 30 members of the public in the room also rose in protest. They all remained standing for the rest of the committee hearing.

Bill advances

Rogers’ bill eventually passed out of committee with only Republican votes. Republican Timothy Dunn said the bill was needed because “cartels and drug runners are still active,” while Rogers blamed undocumented immigrants for the increased cost of housing as justification. But Sears called the bill “absolutely ignorant” and “careless,” and Miranda said the proposed law caused more “confusion” and “fear.”

Sears also told Gowan that she stood because “I’m disappointed that we compelled a member of the public to actually answer a question,” adding that, “I believe that any citizen, anyone who comes in to speak, has the right to come and go as they please.” But Gowan doubled down on his decision to compel Rivera to speak or leave, calling it “just a rude situation.”

Virian Serafin, an attendee who also stood to protest Gowan, said after the hearing that the chairman was “on a bit of a power trip.”

“You’re not going to silence any of our voices. You’re not going to tell us how to speak,” said Serafin, who also works for the immigration organizing group Living United for Change in Arizona. ‘We’re not going to allow them to stifle our voices or control it in any way.”

Reached after the meeting, Miranda told New Times she’s “going to stand with my colleague” and called the demonstration a “smaller sense of the atmosphere” compared to the near-daily protests outside the senate building.

“All we have and all we can do is publicly tell the facts. The United States is under chaos, so we have to just keep speaking,” Miranda said, adding that the anti-immigration bills are “going to get vetoed” by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

“Thank goodness for the veto pen,” Miranda said.

Neither Shamp nor Gowan responded to requests for comment on the incident.

Speaking to New Times after the vote, Rivera thanked everyone who stood, including the three Democratic senators. The gesture “it almost brings me to tears” and “really warmed up my heart that there were so many other people standing up for me,” he said.

Rivera then grabbed a bullhorn from another activist and continued to make his voice heard from the grounds outside the senate building

“We can’t sit back. We can’t just idly sit back and say, ‘Oh well, we can’t do anything,’” Rivera told New Times. “We have to stand up.”