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PHOENIX — A Senate panel voted Tuesday to hear from Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, and the senator who filed an ethics complaint against him, but not anyone else for now — if ever.

Members of the Ethics Committee rejected a request by Sen. Ben Miranda, D-Phoenix, to seek testimony from Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, when the panel hears evidence next week about whether Harper broke ethics rules.

Miranda wants to know whether Verschoor and Harper planned ahead of time to cut off debate on the last night of the legislative session to clear the way for a vote on a measure to constitutionally ban gay marriage. He said the events of the night of June 27, coupled with Harper's somewhat differing explanations of what happened, make Verschoor's testimony necessary.

But Sen. Robert Blendu, R-Litchfield Park, said anything Verschoor has to say is irrelevant.

Blendu said he already believes Harper committed no ethical violation in shutting down debate. In fact, he said, if there was an ethical violation, it was committed by two Democratic lawmakers who were improperly prolonging debate on an unrelated bill to keep the Senate from discussing the gay-marriage amendment.

"But you don't see any Republicans whining about that," he said. Instead, Blendu said, the complaint against Harper by Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, is itself improper.

"This is strictly an effort to get into Jack Harper's primary," Blendu said, noting that Harper faces a challenge from Wickenburg Republican John Zerby. "It's pure politics."

Cheuvront and Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, were engaged in a question-and-answer session with each other on the Senate floor over provisions of an unrelated tax bill. But the pair, who are both openly gay, never made a secret of their desire to delay a vote on the gay-marriage proposal in hopes that one of the needed 16 votes would disappear.

Harper, who was presiding over the floor debate, shut off the microphones but indicated he had made a mistake.

"I clicked on the wrong thing," he said. "If you'd like to speak, go ahead and push your buttons again."

But instead of turning the floor back to Cheuvront and Aboud, he immediately recognized Verschoor, who made the motion to halt further floor debate. That was approved, paving the way for the Senate to vote 16-4, with 10 members absent, to ask voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage in Arizona as solely between one man and one woman.

Harper has since said he was justified in cutting off the pair because they were "conducting their invalid filibuster."

Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, said the best way to determine why Harper did what he did would be to take testimony from Verschoor.

"If we ask Senator Harper and he says, 'I did that by accident,' that's one thing," Arzberger said. "But it would clarify things for me if we would then ask Senator Verschoor, 'Why were you prepared to instantly hit your (request to speak) light at a moment when he accidentally did something?' "

But Blendu said that if Democrats want to go down that path, he wants an unbridled hearing to ask questions of others opposed to the gay-marriage amendment "to see if there was some sort of gay anti-marriage-amendment activity going on."

"If this was some sort of orchestrated campaign to prevent the votes on the floor, I think there may be more (ethical) violations out there," Blendu said.

"Maybe we reserve the right to call the governor down here, all her staff," he continued. "How far do you want to go?"

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, who chairs the Ethics Committee, said he remains open.

The issue of gay marriage has spilled into Harper's primary.

Zerby has said that while he personally believes marriage is between one man and one woman, he would have voted against the constitutional amendment because he does not believe that it is a matter for state intervention.