The Arizona Senate’s passage of a budget plan that includes Medicaid expansion on May 16 was a tremendous victory for Gov. Jan Brewer, as well as the lawmakers who stuck their necks out for the governor — most notably Senate Majority Leader John McComish, who sponsored the amendment that added expansion to the budget plan.

The newest incarnation of Gov. Jan Brewer’s sales tax reform plan will be a net positive to the state’s general fund that could bring in nearly $37 million in new revenue next year, according to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

Gov. Jan Brewer wasn’t kidding around when she told the Legislature to stop sending her bills.

The debate over Medicaid expansion has become so contentious that Rep. Kate Brophy McGee received an “abusive, threatening and vulgar” voicemail that scared her so much she is having House security investigate the matter.

A Democratic state lawmaker plans to hold a hearing into misconduct at the Arizona National Guard revealed in a newspaper and National Guard investigation.

An atheist lawmaker’s decision to give the daily prayer at the Arizona House of Representatives triggered a do-over from a Christian lawmaker who said the previous day’s prayer didn’t pass muster.

A member of the coalition of Senate Republicans who broke away from the majority party and voted for Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal is contemplating whether to run for office in 2014.


Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, said that while he intends to run at this point, the decision is one he must still mull over in the coming year – and any reservations he has to running have nothing to do with his vote on Medicaid.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on May 21 striking down Arizona’s ban on abortions after 20-weeks of pregnancy came as no surprise to most who were involved in the case, although for differing reasons. And now sights are on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Voters in the 2014 general election will decide whether Arizona can reject federal actions and programs that the Legislature or the voters deem unconstitutional.

Even though Republican Rep. Ethan Orr of Tucson was listed as benefiting from only $566 spent by lobbyists, he ranked No. 3 among the most lobbied lawmakers during the first quarter.