How shocked were you that the governor pushed for Medicaid expansion at the State of the State? And are you surprised that she accomplished that?

I’m going to admit I’m not shocked at all. The reason being is, when I first came in as leader, we set out to meet with [Brewer] to go over and have a chance to talk with her, and in our discussions, of course naturally the conversation of Medicaid came out… And she did express her level of concern for it but never did lead on to ‘Yes, I’ll be talking about that at the State of the State,’ but never in our conversation did it seem like it was opposition when we were speaking, but didn’t scream out support either.

At what point did you decide this issue is important enough to toss aside debate in special session?

We did have debate on it. I think I would have been hesitant in moving forward in that way had there not been an ounce of debate on the bill.

It was a Senate bill that did come out before, and then we were able to amend that in the special session, so we did have an opportunity for debate when it went through our process here. The House, that’s a whole other story, but in my mind, they could have had that occur because it sat there for 30 days.

But there wasn’t any debate on the amendments in the special session. What do you say to your GOP colleagues who blasted you on the floor for that?

It’s up to the individual, the sponsor of a bill, if they would like to take questions or not, whether it’s an amendment or the bill. It’s truly up to them. I’m sure you’ve probably had a chance to talk with Senator Pierce about why that’s the case, but in many of those instances it wasn’t a hidden secret of what those amendments were going to be. You had opportunity in caucus to talk about it.

How many votes did you have to oust Senate President Andy Biggs?

We did not want to go in that direction. We’ve always been treated with the utmost respect, always were very much aware of any action that was going to happen on the floor whether we liked it or not, action that was going to take place in committees, very good communication that went on. And even the Senate budget bill that we had an opportunity to vote on, and if you noticed, bipartisan support coming out for that particular budget as well.

So how many votes were there to oust him?

That wasn’t an option. I knew he’d do the right thing, so I hadn’t went around and taken those counts. I think in a situation where he had not taken the chair, we would have had to cross that bridge when we got to it.  But at that time, when we were moving things forward, I really believe that the individual I had been working with, like it, love it, hate, would be civil.

How far was Biggs willing to go to stop Medicaid expansion?

When you look at the last budget that passed out of the Senate chambers, it had Medicaid expansion in there. And quite frankly, as the president or speaker of the House, the onus is on you. You have that power, that luxury, whatever you want to call it, of being able to allow a bill to move through the process. And I think if he had really wanted to stop that, he could’ve stopped that and not allowed it to get anywhere near a committee or anywhere on the floor and we would not have had an opportunity to vote on it. Technically, we voted twice on it.

Can Democrats keep playing a large role in the Senate in future sessions? Or will it be a return to previous sessions?

I would hope not. Truly nothing in the world ever surprises me, but I certainly would hope we would not start backpedaling. If it starts that marginalization and we’re there pointing out the inconsistencies, the inequities, the non-civility, we’re pointing that out again, the voters showed last time that they really disapprove of that type of behavior at the Legislature.

What was your first reaction to the Supreme Court throwing out Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act?

Dangerous, hurtful, slippery slope precedent. When we look at the fact of why that occurred, why that happened to begin with, it was to ensure that you could protect the basic rights of individuals to have fair, equal votes. People literally lost their lives. I hear the stories of not a far generation removed, from my parents, that were faced with the types of things they had to go through, so that people could have the basic right to vote for who they felt would be representative for whatever office they were serving in. I feel this is more than a step backwards.