Senate President John Alario says Sen. Karen Carter Peterson shouldn’t have shouted and cursed at Rep. Dodie Horton on the House floor last week, but he stopped short of saying he would reprimand her in an interview with The USA Today Network of Louisiana.
“She should not have involved herself in that kind of rhetoric,” Alario says. “Having said that, I understand (Peterson) apologized and that Horton accepted the apology and I’m hoping that’s good enough.”
Peterson and other senators were on the House floor during the final minutes of Thursday’s chaotic debate over next year’s budget, when multiple lawmakers heard Peterson tell Horton to “sit down and shut the f–k up.”
Horton, a Haughton Republican, says Peterson—who is chairman of the state Democratic Party and vice chair of civic engagement and voter participation at the Democratic National Committee—apologized via text message.
And while Horton says she accepts Peterson’s text apology in the spirit of her Christian faith, she didn’t respond because “she didn’t insult me by text.”
Horton believes Alario should censure Peterson and remove her as chair of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee. Republicans seized upon the dust-up over the weekend with state GOP Chairman Roger Villere calling on Peterson to resign as chair of the state Democrats.
Peterson did not respond to a request for comment from the USA Today Network of Louisiana, which has the full story.
