Debate

was necessary, he said if a new version of it passed out of Senate committee in the 2015 session, he would let it come to the floor for debate.

Patrick said that “women deserve equal pay and if they are doing a better job they deserve more,” but that he voted against the bill because, government shouldn’t be “telling businesses how to pay their employees whether they’re male or female.”

And, Patrick said, “I don’t think the senators will want that bill, but if they do, I would hold it.”

Dewhurst said “that is representative” of what he thinks is Patrick’s misbegotten view the job of lieutenant governor.

“That decision that you’re not going to let bills be debated on the floor of the Senate even when there are the votes to pass the bill is a jab in the eye of the majority of the senators who happen to be Republicans,” Dewhurst said Monday.

“At the end of the day, each one of the senators is elected by their constituents, and so I think there has to be a healthy balance,” Dewhurst said. “I don’t remember ever blocking a bill ... when there was strong support for it but I have numerous times, hundreds and hundreds of times, worked with the members, twisted arms, cajoled, pushed, negotiated, in order to change members’ minds on bills, but at the end of the day, I think this is real bad practice.”

“The lieutenant gov-