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The memory of "Godfather" Don Corleone was present on the floor of the state House this week.

"You never go outside the family," Phoenix Rep. Steve Gallardo, the Democrats' minority whip, told his members after a rocky first two weeks for his party.

Except, what if it's a dysfunctional family? An apparent feud among House Democrats comes on the heels of much ballyhoo going into the session about their new political power.

Conventional wisdom said thar with 27 of 60 House seats, all the Dems needed were "three votes to stop bad stuff and four votes to pass good stuff."

Newspaper articles and editorial pages trumpeted the Dem-ocrats' increased political capital, and that of Rep. Phil Lopes, a Tucson Democrat and the House minority leader.

But the "in" question at the Capitol is whether the party will be able to accomplish much in the midst of the fracas.

The tension started after four Democrats — Manny Alvarez, Olivia Cajero Bedford, Martha Garcia and Ben Miranda — complained they got gypped on committee assignments as payback for not voting for Lopes as minority leader.

After getting nowhere with leadership, the crew crossed party lines and went to Republican House Speaker Jim Weiers, says Rep. Linda Lopez, a Tucson Democrat who narrowly lost the minority-leader position to Lopes in November.

Weiers called on Lopez for help, she says. And to the dismay of Gallardo and Phil Lopes, Weiers granted the committee assignment changes.

"Sometimes if you've gone to the head of the family, and felt that the head of the family didn't address the issue, you have to go elsewhere," said Lopez, adding the members felt like the bad assignments were "retaliation" against them for supporting her over Phil Lopes.

The reshuffling left the Democratic leadership steaming, but then came part two.

Before the start of the session, Lopes persuaded Weiers to let all Democrats sit on one side of the House — seen as overly partisan by the anti-Lopes crowd.

While honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Rep. Pete Rios, a Pinal County Democrat, compared the seat assignments to segregation. "Mr. Speaker, I have this personal reluctance to go along with things that segregate people, and I've noticed that on the floor of the House we are now segregated," he said. "We have Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other."

Gallardo said the seating assignments were made to help freshmen get help from senior members — and he didn't exactly appreciate Rios' dissent.

"We should be a united caucus," Gallardo said, in delivering his "Godfather" take-off.

Arizona's top Democrat, Gov. Janet Napolitano, has stayed out of the fray, adding it won't affect her agenda. "I think this is for the House Democrats to work out themselves," she said Wednesday. "They're having some difficulties within the caucus," she said, but in the end she believes her agenda will fly with both sides.

Lopes is keeping a low profile and not answering questions. Gallardo didn't return calls. But Linda Lopez agrees with the governor, though she's dismayed by the whole ordeal.

"It's going to take some work on the part of the Democratic caucus leadership to resolve these personal disagreements," she said. But "on the big issues, we're going to be together."

"Whenever you've got a group of people, you're going to have personality problems."

Political Notebook

Daniel Scarpinato