In a letter on Monday to Arizona Board of Regents President Eileen Klein and members of the board, Regent Greg Patterson announced his resignation from the board, effectively immediately.
Patterson was appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2012 and has served as chair since July 2016.
Regent Ridenour will become chair of the board on July 1, 2017.
“Regents serve as volunteers for an eight-year term that comes with heavy responsibilities and requires thousands of hours of intense effort,” Patterson shared in his letter. “My opportunity to participate in that effort and share those responsibilities for the last five years has been a great honor.”
Pressure began to build for Patterson to resign after multiple articles were published about his decision to share a recording he made during a meeting with Rep. Jill Norgaard and Rep. Mark Finchem, who hails from Michigan, in which he attacked Finchem’s cowboy outfit. According to Patterson, he was beside himself due to a press release issued by Finchem and Norgaard regarding HB 2359.
HB2359 would have eliminated the Board of Regents and created local governing boards for each university, comprised of five members serving four-year terms.
In the press release, HB2359 was described as a way to “improve local control of public universities by creating a governing board for each institution.” The motivation for the bill was the “lack of fiscal restraint shown by the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR).”
Patterson’s rant surprised lawmakers, who understood that Finchem’s bill would never be allowed to be heard in committee and as a result was dead on arrival. Speaker of the House JD Mesnard had advised committee chairmen that they were not to consider any bills that would cause controversy. Clearly, in light of the embarrassing reports of the Finchem Patterson encounter, and Patterson’s decision to share his recording with others, Mesnard failed once again.
However, lawmakers say it was Patterson, who took failure to a whole new level when he posed a question on his blog, Espresso Pundit. Patterson asked who was the bigger goat. He then answered his own question. That post, in which Patterson deemed Finchem to be the “goat” is now gone, but it caused further fallout for Patterson.
For Patterson’s generation “goat” means idiot.
Nothing disappears forever on the internet, and a cached version of Patterson’s screed reads in part:
Republic reporter Mary Jo Pitzl called me on Tuesday to get my comment on an upcoming story that Yvonne Wingett is writing. It seems that Rep. Mark Finchem didn’t accept my apology for chewing him out and insulting his tie so it seemed likely that the Universities are going to have a hard time at the Legislature next year. Did I care to comment? I did indeed want to comment. In fact, I offered a rather long and animated comment and then I ended with this question “Which one of us is the goat?”
Mary Jo didn’t understand the question so I said something to this effect.
“Let’s assume that all your facts are correct. Mr. Finchem’s district is highly dependent on the University of Arizona. Many of the UA faculty, staff and contractors live in his district and in fact, two of the Regents live in his district. Are you really telling me that he is planning to make life difficult for the Universities because I insulted his tie? You and I know that some Legislators are actually this petty, but they don’t usually actually admit it. So who does your story portray as the goat, me or Mr. Finchem?”
Well, it was pretty obvious from Mary Jo’s reaction that Yvonne Wingett who is writing the story under the editorial supervision of Michael Squires is planning to claim that I am the goat.
So I will lay out the case for each party and you can tell me who is the goat. Of course, it’s possible that all of the folks involved in the story are goats, so you may choose more than one.Perhaps Finchem is the Goat.
Patterson’s goat post was especially bizarre in light of a previous post that has also disappeared, in which Patterson blames his outburst on too much coffee, but admit to being a jerk. He wrote in part (cached version):
Those who remember my legislative days know that I left no boat unrocked, no bomb unthrown and no ox ungored. I frankly can’t remember how many times I was called into what were known then as “come to Jesus” meetings. Rep. Sue Gerard hosted the first one. Then Rep. John Wetaw, followed by Lisa Graham Keegan. Mark Killian was perhaps the most effective in the early years. I’ll never forget his nearly constant refrain of “Mr. Patterson, we need to have a little chat.” Jane Hull brought me in several times when she was Speaker and then she had a great idea–Stan Barnes. Jane eventually stopped meeting with me directly but every few months pulled Stan aside and said….Mr. Barnes, can you do something about Greg?
So I get it.
By the time we met with Finchem and Norgaard I knew exactly what I was going to say–however, I didn’t tell anyone from the Regents what I had in mind. I waited while the folks from the Regents explained the various efficiencies of the University system and when it was my turn, I told Mr. Finchem that the Republican Caucus is only as credible as it’s least credible member and that if he keeps sponsoring bills like this and issuing press releases like this…well you get the picture.
In my caffeine-induced rage I managed to conclude by announcing that the cowboy costume didn’t work and that he needed to trim the mustache, lose the tie and buy a real suit.
Well. As you might imagine, that didn’t go over very well. I thought it was going to all be fine but word got around the Capitol.From what I hear, the story is continuing to escalate. So it was time for me to check the tape*.
If I had a written transcript of what I said, I would still stand by it. However, having reviewed it, I believe that the tone of my final few sentences was unacceptable. I was angry and unprofessional. Worse than that, my final few sentences unwound everything that had been said in the meeting. Rather than remember any of our points, the only thing that Mr. Finchem could focus on was that I had yelled at him about his tie.
So, Mr. Finchem, I apologize for the harshness and unprofessionalism of my tone. It’s a real apology. I’m not “sorry that you were offended”. Yada yada. I’m sorry for the offensive tone that I used. I stand by what I said, but my tone was harsh, angry and unprofessional. And for that, I apologize.
While initially opposing increased funding for the state’s universities due to the “lack of fiscal restraint shown by the Arizona Board of Regents,” Finchem later traded his support for Governor Doug Ducey’s massive funding bill for the state’s universities for support of his legal tender bill. That bill initially failed to win support, but was brought back to life on the House floor through procedural maneuvers by Mesnard in return for Finchem’s vote.
