What’s all the fighting about inside of the ‘Red Carpet Caucus’ these days?

In a shocking move, the Senate Republican Caucus has voted to removed State Senator Sam Aannestad (R-Grass Valley) from his leadership chair on the Senate Rules Committee, and Senator Sam Aanestad has refused to step down.

This GOP Senate rift seems to be between Senators Jeff Denham (R-Merced) and Sam Aantead.

Senator Jeff Denham has been running for the statewide office of Lt. Governor for over a year. Recently, and rather surprisingly so, Senator Aanestad announced his desire to run against Jeff Denham in the Republican 2010 Primary. This Aanestad announcement has not been met with much excitement inside of the caucus, nor outside with some of the populous.

I have personally addressed the Aanestad decision to run in a previous piece at HOGUE NEWS, stating my concerns surrounding the necessity of “campaign fuel” for the eventual general election against the well funded Democrat, State Senator Dean Florez (D-Fresno).

Fellow Capitol Blogger, Greg Lucas reported that Senator Denham wrote a letter of direction and forced an open vote in the caucus last week, asking for the removal of Sam Aanestad from his leadership position on the Senate Rules Committee, and his this past week.

In recent months, the Republican State Senate Caucus has featured two leading members removing themselves from leadership positions while campaigning for statewide offices. There seems to be some “unwritten rule” that a fellow elected senator should not use his leadership advantage to run against another fellow elected while inside of a statewide primary.

Call it a gentleman’s agreement; unless your talking about this week’s flare-up.

This self-applied ethic goes back to the start of 2009, when Senator Denham was an early consideration for caucus leader after the former GOP Leader was removed shortly after the February budget agreement that increased taxes to the amount of $12 billion on the private sector.

From sources inside of the Capitol, when a few members approached Denham to support him in becoming the next leader, he publicly removed his name from consideration so to focus his efforts on his statewide race for Lt. Governor. It was at that time that the caucus named its current leader, Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, to the high office.

More recently, the Senate Caucus saw Senator George Runner step-down as a member of leadership when he announced his decision to run against three current GOP Senators for the Board of Equalization.

The announcement of Senator Aanestad running against Senator Denham for Lt. Governor, as well as his determination to keep his Senate Leadership position on the Rules Committee has caused a major rift for the ‘red carpet’ Republicans.

This past week, Denham made a petition for a caucus vote on Aanestad’s current committee seat. The vote returned 9-4 in favor of Aanestad stepping-down from his leadership position. Two of the four votes were Leader Hollingsworth and the Senator Aanestad.

After the tally was read, and the decision made official, it was reported that Senator Aanestad made mention that will not abide by the caucus vote, and that he will keep serving on the Senate Rules Committee.

It was after the dust-up, vote and Aanestad declaration that Leader Hollingsworth decided to add to his earlier endorsement of Denham for Lt. Governor, and announce that he was now “duel-endorsing” both of them for the statewide race.

These ‘duel-endorsements’ are becoming a fixture inside of the Red Carpet caucus; for Hollingsworth has endorsed Runner, Nakanishi and Ashburn for the BOE race in 2010.

As it rests today, there is no solution to Sam Aanestad’s Senate Rules Committee position.

The senator has made it known that he has no intention of stepping down – even after the caucus vote; some have suggested he could turn to the Senate Pro-tem for higher leadership support in staying on with the Rules Committee membership.

How interesting would that be, a very conservative senator asking one of the most liberal Democrats in the state for support against his own Republican Caucus’ vote asking him to step aside as he ran his race for Lt. Governor.

Again exposing the surreal; politics makes for strange bed-fellows.