Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The Arizona Supreme Court today denied a request to have the state’s preeminent medical marijuana lawsuit skip an appellate court review and move directly to the state’s high court, leading advocates of the system to declare victory in the more-than-two-year legal struggle over the voter-approved law’s legitimacy.

The state’s redistricting commission will run out of money before legal fees accrued in multiple lawsuits can be paid, the commission’s staff said Thursday. The commission’s director has begun negotiating with the Legislature over another supplemental appropriation.

The state’s redistricting commission is set to discuss the lawsuits it is embroiled in today, and weigh an appeal of a recent ruling that forced commissioners to answer questions from attorneys who want to prove a conspiracy led to a legislative map that critics say favors Democrats.

A study by the Arizona Legislature's independent financial analysts shows Gov. Jan Brewer's proposed overhaul of the state's sales tax collection system could cost the general fund nearly $140 million a year. A second new study by an outside group puts the number at $125 million.

With less than two weeks before the start of the trial over whether a Democratic conspiracy rigged Arizona’s legislative map, attorneys representing each side are engaged in an 11th-hour fight over what testimony will be included and what evidence each side will get to introduce.

Attorneys hoping to prove that three of Arizona’s five redistricting commissioners intentionally designed legislative districts to favor Democrats made progress March 7 in their fight to get the commission’s attorneys to release more of the commissioners’ internal documents and communications.

A series of court rulings issued late last week in two lawsuits against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission further pave the path for Republican litigants who hope to prove the commission illegally created maps to favor Democrats.

Defeated in 2010 in her re-election bid, McGuire went back to her home in Kearny and got a job as a school bus driver for the Ray Unified School District. She returned to the Capitol this year armed with the experience she gained from a year spent driving students to and from schools.

Nearly every person in Arizona who voted in the 2012 election cast a ballot for some presidential candidate, whether Mitt Romney, Barack Obama or some other candidate — except in the polygamist community of Colorado City.

Fred DuVal’s gubernatorial campaign is semi-official after filing an exploratory committee today, making him the first Democrat to test the waters for the state’s top office in 2014.