Elected Office
Roach was elected to the senate in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010. Her current term expires January 2015.
In 2010 fellow Senate Republicans banned her from the Senate Caucus after colleagues told her she had repeatedly mistreated staff and should get counseling to manage her anger. Republicans barred her from the caucus room, though she could still vote on the Senate Floor.
Despite Roach's attempts at appeal, the disciplinary sanctions against Roach were maintained for almost two years, until they were abruptly lifted in February of 2012, when the Senate Republican leadership wrote a letter to Sen. Roach inviting her back into the Republican caucus. Not long after Roach was invited into the Senate Republican caucus, Senate Republicans- joining with three Democrats- utilized an obscure procedural motion to wrest control of the budget writing process from the Democratic caucus and pass their own budget. However, in Roach's absence, even with the votes of the three Democrats, the Republicans would still come up one vote short of being able to pass their budget on the floor of the Senate. In one interview, Roach said, "I was the 25th vote (for the GOP), and my caucus finally did the right thing." Her return to the caucus room prompted Mike Hoover, a GOP staffer who had been verbally abused by Roach in the past, to sue the Washington State Senate for $1.75 million for creating a hostile workplace by readmitting Roach back into the caucus room.
In September of 2012, the Washington State Senate reaffirmed their sanctions against Senator Roach.
Read more about this topic: Pam Roach
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