Brian Setencich

* Re “Speaker Assails ‘Fear’ Tactics of Some in GOP,” Nov. 7: The Assembly speakership of Brian Setencich was on its last legs on its first day. That’s the price a Republican pays for turning his back on his colleagues. That is why it was so nauseating and pathetic to read about Setencich’s tales of victimization at the hands of those mean boys he presumably is leading.

He also says it was “wrong” for state Senate Republicans to replace their longtime leader Ken Maddy with conservative Sen. Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove. Setencich calls Maddy “extremely effective.” Sure he was. That’s if you think effectiveness is contentedly languishing in the minority and finding compromise with Democrats a satisfying existence.

Setencich’s turncoat tactics, if gone unpunished, will lead to more years of GOP minority status in the Assembly. He certainly should have expected the Republican caucus’ collective cold shoulder.

PETER MUSURLIAN

Glendale

* Let me get this straight. Setencich was told by the people representing us that he had been seen visiting GOP enemies in the Capitol and that there is a “suspect list” and he’s on it? What kind of old boys’ club, warmongering thing do those Republicans have going on up there? And if these types of paranoid, juvenile attitudes represent their constituencies . . . well, I know a number of Founding Fathers who just turned over in their graves. If this behavior is for real, the Republican members of the state Assembly are not only un-American but collectively, then, autocratic. This is collective despotic rule at any cost; Machiavellian Realpolitik!

Setencich is a courageous young man for whom I, as an independent, born of Republicans and enlightened by many Democrats, would be proud to vote.

WESLEY STAPLES