I am sure the voters of the 19th District didn’t expect the first thing their re-elected state Senator to do is head to Richmond and act like a petulant child.
According to a well placed source, Smith was whining about possibly not getting his preferred committee assignments and threatened to not go along with the proposed Senate organization.
Should Smith merely sit on his hands for the organization vote, it would be 20 Democrats – 19 Republicans. No tiebreaker cast by the lieutenant governor.
Smith has just lost all credibility with me.
Apparently he said, “I hope there’s nobody from the media here.”
Character is what is exhibited when people are not watching. Clearly we now know the character of Smith.
This could be why there has still been no vote for organization and the Senate came to order at noon.
Update: Apparently cooler heads have prevailed and Smith has voted with the MAJORITY and LG Bolling for the state Senate to be organized along GOP lines. This gives Republicans the Senate for the first time in 11 years. That being said, Smith merely threatening this yesterday is in really bad form.
