Republican leadership battle in Virginia Senate gets heated
RICHMOND — A leadership battle among Republicans in the Virginia Senate has taken a turn for the nasty, shattering the chamber’s usual decorum and creating a distraction for the GOP just weeks after its victory in hard-fought elections.
Sen. Thomas A. Garrett Jr. (R-Buckingham) and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) complain bitterly about each other in a series of e-mails sent to fellow members of the Republican Senate caucus and obtained by The Washington Post.
Garrett contends Norment is trying to monopolize power in the Senate despite personal scandal, while Norment says he still has the support of the caucus.
Senate Republicans are slated to pick their leadership in a private meeting Thursday, but the struggle leading up to it is no longer behind closed doors. The e-mail messages offer a peek into a brawl raging in the normally genteel Senate. Norment, usually the epitome of the chamber’s throwback style with his suspenders, bow ties and baroque speechifying, resorts to all-caps delivery as he pushes back against Garrett....
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