BREAKING: John McCain Has Been Officially Censured by AZ GOP Citing Liberal Voting Record: WATCH Floor Vote Unfold

(Fox News) — The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative.

The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe, state party spokesman Tim Sifert said. It needed signatures from at least 20 percent of state committee members to reach the floor for debate.

Sifert said no further action was expected.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers declined to comment on the censure.

McCain isn’t up for re-election until 2016, when will turn 80. He announced in October that he was considering running for a sixth term.

According to the resolution, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee has campaigned as a conservative but has lent his support to issues “associated with liberal Democrats,” such as immigration reform and to funding the law sometimes known as Obamacare.

Several Republican county committees recently censured McCain.

Timothy Schwartz, the Legislative District 30 Republican chairman who helped write the resolution, said the censure showed that McCain was losing support from his own party.

“We would gladly embrace Sen. McCain if he stood behind us and represented us,” Schwartz said.

Fred DuVal, a Democrat who plans to run for Arizona governor, called the censure an “outrageous response to the good work Sen. McCain did crafting a reasonable solution to fix our broken immigration system.”

McCain has been dogged by conservatives objecting to his views on immigration and campaign finance, among other issues, since he first ran for Congress in 1982. Republican activists were also turned off by his moderate stances in the 2000 presidential race.

McCain was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and won his Senate seat in 1986.

[H/T Fox News]

Glimmer of Hope: A Group of AZ Republicans Voting to Censure John McCain

A group of Arizona Republicans is set to vote this coming weekend on whether to censure Senator John McCain (R-AZ). The Maricopa County GOP’s frustration with the Senator stems from his “long and terrible record of drafting, co-sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats.”

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“Yes, there is hope today,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “Try this out for size. [This is] going to be voted on by the Maricopa GOP leadership.”

Below is the full text of the censure resolution as published by IC Arizona:

Senator John McCain Censured by Arizona’s Republican Leadership

As leaders in the Republican Party, we are obligated to fully support our Party, platform, and its candidates. Only in times of great crisis or betrayal is it necessary to publicly censure our leaders. Today we are faced with both. For too long we have waited, hoping Senator McCain would return to our Party’s values on his own. That has not happened. So with sadness and humility we rise and declare:

Whereas Senator McCain has amassed a long and terrible record of drafting, co-sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats, such as Amnesty, funding for ObamaCare, the debt ceiling, assaults on the Constitution and 2nd amendment, and has continued to support liberal nominees;

Whereas this record has been disastrous and harmful to Arizona and the United States; and,

Whereas Senator McCain has campaigned as a conservative and made promises during his re-election campaigns, such as the needed and welcomed promise to secure our borders and finish the border fence, only to quickly flip-flop on those promises; and

Whereas McCain has abandoned our core values and has been eerily silent against Liberals, yet publicly reprimands Conservatives in his own Party, therefore

BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED that the Maricopa County Republican leadership censures Senator McCain for his continued disservice to our State and Nation, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that until he consistently champions our Party’s Platform and values, we, the Republican leadership in Arizona will no longer support, campaign for or endorse John McCain as our U.S. Senator.

“Wouldn’t that be nice if that would pass,” Glenn asked. “That is what needs to be done, I think, on all of them.”

Front page image courtesy of the AP