Democrats are asking state Rep. Daniel Patterson to step down from the Legislature today after Patterson allegedly beat and bruised his girlfriend and stole her dog over the weekend.

House Minority leader Chad Campbell this afternoon called for Patterson to resign. Campbell said he hoped that Patterson, D-Tucson, would take the advice and leave the easy way.

“We are going to ask him to step down,” Campbell said. “His constituents deserve someone who can focus on the responsibilities of the office.”

“He needs to be held to the same legal standard as every other citizen of the state,” Campbell said.

And despite years of allegations that Patterson has been physically and verbally abusive to his family and friends, Campbell said he has never had enough evidence to actually go after Patterson until now.

Patterson doesn’t have many friends left at the Capitol — Republicans make no secret about their feelings toward the second-term lawmaker, and even his Democratic co-workers are bailing on him quickly.

“I’m very concerned,” said Rep. Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, earlier in the morning. “And if its true, he’s on his own.”

Rep. Macario Saldate, D-Tucson, said he’s heard the accusations, and if they turn out to be true, he wants Patterson out of the Legislature.

“Absolutely (I would support ethics hearings), that’s an appropriate way to go, I support that,” he said.

If Patterson decides not to step down (he so far hasn’t returned phone calls from the Tucson Weekly), House Democrats are ready to file a formal ethics complaint against him, said Murphy Herbert, the House Democrats’ spokeswoman.

Rep. Ted Vogt, R-Tucson, is chairman of the House Ethics Committee and it would his decision to hold an ethics investigation—like the process Sen. Scott Bundgaard faced late last year after he stopped on the side of a Phoenix freeway and hit his girlfriend. Bundgaard eventually resigned rather than testify before the committee.

Vogt said he hasn’t yet received a formal complaint, which he would need to open an investigation.

Republicans took no time to start throwing their own punches.

State Sen. Frank Antenori said serious accusations have been swirling around Patterson for years, and it’s about time he got what’s coming to him.

“It’s like karma,” he said. “What goes around comes around.”

This article appears in Feb 23-29, 2012.

8 replies on “House Democrats Call on Patterson To Resign”

  1. So I guess we may gather from context that Patterson is a Democrat, since NOWHERE IN YOUR STORY DO YOU IDENTIFY HIS PARTY AFFILIATION.

  2. Um, unless you count this:

    “Patterson doesn’t have many friends left at the Capitol — Republicans make no secret about their feelings toward the second-term lawmaker, and even his Democratic co-workers are bailing on him quickly.”

  3. Quite. That’s what I meant by ‘context’. It doesn’t seem too much trouble for the writer or editor to say ‘Rep. Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff’ or ‘Rep. Macario Saldate, D-Tucson’ or ‘Rep. Ted Vogt, R-Tucson’, so is it asking too much to aid the casual reader, especially one who does not live in Patterson’s district, by being equally and consistently specific?

  4. You can tell he is a Democrat because fellow Democrats called for his resignation. If this were a Republican these charges would be dismissed as an attack by the “liberal” media. Republicans are always held to no standard.

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