Following her public feud with an association representing Arizona municipalities this year, a Republican from Scottsdale wants to bar the association’s new employees from joining the state’s retirement system.

Former Senate President Russell Pearce said the dispute over organizational elections in Legislative District 25 is over cheating, not a power struggle between political factions as it has been portrayed in a federal lawsuit.


Pearce, a precinct committeeman in the heavily conservative Mesa district, said the lawsuit, filed Dec. 24 in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, is an attempt to cover up cheating and fraud that was committed by a few people.

On Christmas Eve, the establishment camp of the LD25 GOP filed a complaint against the Maricopa County Republican Party, the party’s ad hoc investigative committee, and its chairman, Rob Haney, and asked a federal court to ensure that the district party officers who were elected last month are seated.

The latest lawsuit challenging snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl just north of Flagstaff has been withdrawn.

In the wake of the massacre that left 20 children dead at a Connecticut elementary school, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office wants to provide firearms training to one employee at every school.



Under the plan, which Attorney General Tom Horne announced today, every K-12 school in the state can designate its principal or another employee to receive extensive training to in firearms use and emergency response.

A group of moderate, GOP precinct committeemen in Legislative District 25 has filed suit over a disputed organizational election in November and allege that a faction of Russell Pearce supporters is trying to bully its way back into power.

In the wake of the Connecticut school shootings, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is proposing a plan to allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.

The IRC today also chose not to appeal the appellate court’s ruling this month that the commission is subject to state open meeting laws.

As the 51st Legislative Session approaches, the state’s redistricting commission is preparing to negotiate with lawmakers, once again, over money.

When Dan Bell drives through his 35,000-acre cattle ranch, he speaks of the hurdles that the Border Patrol faces in his rolling green hills of oak and mesquite trees — the hours it takes to drive to some places, the wilderness areas that are generally off-limits to motorized vehicles, the environmental reviews required to extend a dirt road.