Not surprisingly, Senate President Tim Bee attracted criticism when he took a trip to Washington, D.C. for two days early this month, leaving some quarters grumbling over his departure at a time when a solution to a nearly $1 billion budget deficit in the current fiscal year was far from reached.
But Bee maintained that his campaign-related trip was timed well, and did not delay budget talks.
“We didn’t miss anything,” he said.
Bee, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the 8th Congressional District, resumed work on Feb. 11.
Bee said he kept in touch with his staff and his majority leader all throughout his visit to the nation’s capital, where he attended a Conservative Political Action Committee convention and addressed members of the U.S. House Republican Conference, the equivalent to Arizona’s Republican caucus.
Bee said he also had a “meet-and-greet” event hosted by U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, but emphasized that it wasn’t a fundraiser.
Bee left for Washington, D.C. at a time when frustration over the sluggish pace of the budget talks was bubbling to the surface. Caucus leaders have changed tactics as they grapple with fixing fiscal year 2008’s out-of-balance budget.
The state Democratic Party, which has been attacking Bee at every turn, seized on the occasion to criticize him anew.
“He seems like a part-time Senate president who’s more interested in pandering to his right wing and filling his campaign coffers than negotiating a budget,” said Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bittner.
But Bee said his trip coincided with meetings on the budget that caucus leaders held with members. The timing of his trip and the meetings worked out well, he said.
Majority and minority leaders and the Governor’s Office knew he would be gone Feb. 6 and 7, he said.
He might have had “a couple of hours of (budget) discussions” had he stayed, but he pointed out that even now they are continuing the small-group meetings.
“We have kept everything running on schedule in my absence,” he told an Arizona Capitol Times correspondent in Washington DC. “We're at a point in time in negotiations on the budget where the majority leaders and the minority leaders wanted to spend time with individual caucus members running through budget items. That is the responsibility of the majority leader, to work on getting members' input on the budget, and that's what's occurring.”
Bee said he does not think it would be difficult juggling his Senate duties and the demands of his congressional campaign. The congressional hopeful said he has been careful about planning. He also said he has a strong leadership team in the Senate. “Everybody is working together and I anticipate no problems.”
Bee’s absence was cited by sources close to the situation as the primary reason Republican and Democrat legislative leaders did not meet on Feb. 6 and 7 to negotiate a solution to the budget deficit.
Bee’s official excuse slip, filed with the Senate Secretary’s Office, states he was “away on personal business.”
Details of the trip were elusive. 
Bee’s office would only say he was taking care of personal business. A secretary said Feb. 6 she did not know where Bee was and a Senate Republican spokeswoman would only say the senator was out of town. Multiple messages left at his Tucson campaign headquarters on the days he was excused from the floor were not returned.
Stepping up the attack, Bitter said the people of Arizona “expect to have a Senate president who is honest and forthright with them, not someone who is willing to let his staff cover for him while he’s gone.”
She also said if Bee’s office thought the trip was “legitimate, why weren’t they being straightforward about it≠”
Asked why it was difficult to confirm where he went or why, Bee said: “I’m not sure. I imagine they were just irritated at the hounding.”
He said his office knew he was in DC.
“Next time,” he said, “we’ll make sure that we do some sort of media advisory before we go.”
But Bee also complained: “I’ve been on trips before. I’ve been to conferences before, but we’ve never had to ask permission from the press to do these things. Now that I’m high profile, I guess, we will be making sure that everyone knows where I am.”
Washington, DC, correspondent Reid Wilson contributed to this article. ≠