Senate president taps Prescott rancher Pierce as president pro tem

This is interesting. I'd heard that leadership changes were coming because of the budget process collapse, but I didn't imagine that Burns might tap the utterly experience-free Pierce for anything like this. While there's not much real power in this position, it's an important statement in that it demotes Verschoor, who's been counted among the anointed for several sessions. Given the radical credentials of Gorman and Verschoor, this feels like a slight drift toward the middle, but it also might just be flailing. Burns has lost many allies over his handling of the session.

Keep an eye out, I have a feeling other important changes could be coming for the Legislature before the budget is in the bag.

Nice that the Courier continues to tag bigtime developer Pierce as a "rancher." I'm so fooled.