Jack Harper is a Republican state senator living in Surprise, northwest of Phoenix.

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Sen. Paula Aboud's July 10 guest opinion, "Final Senate session breaks trust," is completely hypocritical. The senator attacks the morality of several members, including myself, and accuses us of breaching the integrity of the Senate.

The irony is that Aboud's own behavior on the floor and her column does the very thing of which she falsely accuses us.

I respect her passion on the marriage amendment; we all have to vote our conscience, but making patently false allegations of a conspiracy is not the appropriate way to get that message out.

Aboud was using a county-taxation issue to conduct a filibuster to delay a vote that would send the marriage amendment to the ballot for the people to decide. In doing so, she committed two technical violations of Senate rules. First, she wandered off topic, and second, she stopped debating to consider how she would continue to waste the Senate's time.

Further, even after her filibuster was broken, she had multiple opportunities to reopen a filibuster using different techniques, but she was outwitted.

In response, she criticized the majority leader for being motivated by his Mormon faith to press the issue. Senate protocol admonishes members from naming names when engaging in a conflict — a procedure she violated more than once.

She impugned the character of her fellow senators on the floor and did so again in her column.

Additionally, what got lost in the finger-pointing is that Aboud helped kill legislation that Pima County desperately needs. She and her caucus left the floor prior to completing votes on several important pieces of legislation that could have brought a sports authority district to Southern Arizona and a bill that would have made equine tripping — cruelly roping a galloping horse to the ground — a felony.

This session in particular was difficult and hard-fought on both sides of the aisle. I am hopeful that rather than dwell on any ill feelings that may have arisen toward the end of session, we can move beyond the past and look forward to the future, and work together in a more positive fashion.

I hope that some of you will take a look at the behavior that evolved during the session and judge for yourself what occurred.

Sen. Aboud tried to deny the public the opportunity to vote on the marriage amendment and attacked members along the way. I am still waiting for an apology.