Arizona’s 2012 legislative session picked up where the 2011 session left off — aspiring to be the most pro-small business Legislature in Arizona’s history.

Our reporters catch lawmakers during their happy, upset, frustrated and humorous moments . . .

It is often said that nothing — or at least nothing good — gets done in an election year. You can’t say that about the Arizona state Capitol in 2012.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell was a little more hopeful this session. The state had some money to spend, and the Legislature wasn’t going to have to do as much budget-slashing as they had in previous years. Maybe now, he thought, they could start restoring some funding that had been cut.

Two words come to mind when I think of the centennial legislative session: lost opportunity.

The lack of true leadership demonstrated by the Arizona Legislature under a Republican supermajority and a Republican governor will hurt Arizona for years.

Once again, voting and attendance records from this year demonstrate that as long as the legislative session is kept close to the 100 days prescribed by legislative rules, lawmakers’ participation remains high.

The most remarkable thing about Republican leaders’ decision to explore a budget compromise with the minority party this year is that it happened at all — much less that the two sides came within a hair’s breadth of striking what would have been a rare bargain.

Democrats aren’t exactly viewing Gov. Jan Brewer as the second coming of Janet Napolitano, but they’re taking solace that her vetoes included bills that they viewed as some of the most onerous of the 2012 session.

Senate President Steve Pierce, a rancher from Prescott, has a habit of walking into difficult situations.



He did it once three years ago, when he became the de facto majority whip, and he did it again last year, when he vied for the position and became Senate president after Russell Pearce was ousted in a special recall election in November.

Andy Tobin was elected speaker of the House just days after Kirk Adams’ resigned to run for Congress at the end of the 2011 legislative session.



While his seven or so months as speaker during the interim could hardly prepare him for the rigors of leading a chamber during a regular session, it’s clear that he learned some lessons for the task ahead. As is often the case, some of those lessons were learned the hard way.