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Recent Articles from Bob Christie, Capitol Media Services
Hobbs orders hiring freeze, wants agencies to propose spending cuts
Gov. Katie Hobbs has ordered what is essentially a hiring freeze for new state employees and instructed her department heads to send her a plan this week to cut $1.2 billion in spending out of their current and coming year budgets.
Budget negotiations heat up as Legislature slows down
Three months into the Arizona Legislature's annual session, lawmakers are ready to take some time off and go to a work schedule many would love to have -- just one day a week.
Voters to decide whether child sex traffickers get life in prison
Ignoring pleas from Democrats that victims could be caught up in harsh sentencing, Republican lawmakers on Monday sent a measure to the November ballot that if passed by voters in November would require those convicted of sex trafficking minors to spend life in prison with no chance of ever being released.
Debate fiery over expansion of self-defense law
A Senate committee approved an expansion of Arizona’s "castle doctrine'' self-defense law to make it apply not just in someone's home and yard but on any property they own or control after a fiery debate on Thursday.
Legislation to compensate property owners for homeless nuisances to go to voters
Arizona property owners will be able to seek a property tax refund if their city, town or county fails to take steps to clear out encampments, stop public drinking or abate other nuisances created by homeless people under a measure the Legislature wants voters to approve in November.
Cities oppose GOP housing plan
Republicans who control the Arizona Legislature are trying again to address the state’s housing affordability crisis by limiting the ability of cities and towns to set minimum standards for single-family homes.
WIFA ‘alive and well,’ but budget dwindling
Gov. Katie Hobbs' budget proposal, released Friday, cuts this year's promised $333 million deposit in the planned $1 billion fund designed to jump-start the plan to just $33 million.
Hobbs order National Guard to deploy near border
Gov. Katie Hobbs on Friday ordered National Guard soldiers to be placed near - but not on - the border, less than a month after Major Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck, who heads the Guard, told lawmakers the ones who had previously been there weren't needed.
Prison system will boost spending, medical staffing but puts more strain on state budget
Arizona’s prison system will boost spending and medical staffing for prison healthcare by more than a third as it works to meet a federal judge's orders that it vastly improve treatment of the nearly 25,000 prisoners in state-run prisons, but the move puts added pressure on a state budget that is already deep in the red.
Hobbs rejects Republicans’ request to extend bar hours during World Series
Sports fans who want to celebrate an Arizona Diamondbacks World Series win – or drown their sorrows after a loss to the Texas Rangers – won’t have an extra hour to do so in bars across the state.
Planned Parenthood Arizona asks judge to disqualify himself from hearing abortion case
Planned Parenthood Arizona is formally asking state Supreme Court Justice William Montgomery to disqualify himself from sitting on an upcoming case brought by the abortion provider where the state’s high court will decide whether the procedure remains legal here.
Court rules counties can’t hand-count all ballots in elections
Arizona counties are prohibited by law from hand-counting all ballots in an election, even if they want to do so because county leaders have bought into conspiracy theories that say vote tabulation machines are untrustworthy, the state Court of Appeals ruled.
