Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer struggled to explain why she pressured state senators to remove Redistricting Chairman Colleen Coyle Mathis in an interview this week on Alan Colmes' show on Fox News Radio.
The Republican governor called a special session of the legislature, and the Republican-controlled Senate voted to remove Mathis, the only independent on the five-member committee. While GOP lawmakers accused Mathis of "gross misconduct" and "substantial neglect of duty," Arizona Democrats say they removed her after she proposed putting two GOP freshmen congressmen in the same district.
ThinkProgress reported a partial transcript of Brewer and Colmes' radio exchange:
COLMES: What did Colleen do that was inappropriate, Colleen Mathis?
BREWER: Well she acted, uh, inappropriately. Well it was very, pretty much obvious that she in communications, and doing things, uh, not in the public, and the people of Arizona deserve that --
COLMES: You mean she was doing things secretly? Like what?
"They just simply need to operate in a lawful and open fashion so that the voters in Arizona -- the people that this is all affecting -- certainly can have faith in what they're doing," Brewer responded.
Brewer appeared similarly lost for words in her 2010 debate when she glanced down at her notes for a long pause.
Rep. Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called for Brewer's impeachment Friday.
