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Recent Articles from Hank Stephenson
Halls at state Capitol echo with new approaches to school funding
Education funding fever has gripped the Arizona Capitol, and just about everyone has a plan. Republicans spent the week huddling in small groups to discuss the House speaker and Senate president’s four-point education funding plan, while Democrats stood outside the Capitol buildings doing TV interviews to announce and rally public support for their own education funding proposal.
Democrats offer plan to raise $4 billion for education
In response to education funding plans proposed by the governor and legislative Republicans, Democrats today released their own school funding plan, boasting that their proposal would raise nearly $4 billion dollars over 10 years without increasing taxes.
Prosecutors prepare to fight civil forfeiture reforms
Members of the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys’ Advisory Council spoke frankly about their strategy for killing a bill proposed by Republican Rep. Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff during a recent meeting to discuss possible law enforcement related bills. Thorpe has said his goal is to add transparency and accountability in the civil forfeiture laws.
State spurns responsibility to pay for urgent transportation needs, experts say
Experts warn that the future of transportation is changing fast, and Arizona must come up with a 21st century plan to fund the massive infrastructure needs the state is facing.
Cap Times Q&A: Tomi St. Mars – A career built on preventing injuries and death
Tomi St. Mars is the chief of the Office of Injury Prevention at the Arizona Department of Health Services. She started as a medic and emergency nurse 25 years ago, but after seeing the trauma people suffer from easily preventable conditions, moved into the injury prevention field.
Idea of Western states taking over federal land is back in vogue
Back in the mid-1990s, Republican Sen. Sylvia Allen was a rebel. A Sagebrush Rebel. Long before she was a state lawmaker, Allen was pushing back against environmentalists and the federal government as part of a long-standing movement to force the federal government to turn over federally-managed lands to the Western states.
Thorpe taking aim at civil forfeiture laws
It isn’t often that Republican Rep. Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff finds himself agreeing with the American Civil Liberties Union. But when it comes to cracking down on law enforcement agencies’ abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws, the conservative Republican finds himself squarely in line with the ACLU’s thinking.
House and Senate leaders offer school funding plan, but critics find holes in it
When news broke that more than seven months of court-ordered negotiations between education groups and the Legislature had reached an impasse on August 25, leaders of the House and Senate came armed with good news.
Fiber fiasco – House to spend $642,000 on new carpet
After spending more than $325,000 on renovations in the past year, and abandoning plans to spend another $2 million on renovations, the House of Representatives is undergoing another facelift – this time to the tune of $642,000.
Cell phone records linked to prostitution probe shake southern Arizona politics
If you’re a well-known Republican from south of the Gila River, there’s a good chance your name is listed in police documents alongside hundreds of “Johns” suspected of frequenting a Tucson prostitution ring.
Former state senator to run for Corporation Commission
Former Republican state Sen. Al Melvin is running for the Arizona Corporation Commission. Melvin, who served six years in the Senate before briefly running for governor in 2014, announced on Thursday that he would be seeking a spot on the commission, which has three seats up for grabs in the 2016 election.
A Thin Bench: Why few Arizona Democrats want to run for Congress
Just before announcing that she would be leaving Congress to run for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick called her friend K.C. Clark, the Navajo County sheriff, to ask him if he was interested in running for her seat in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2016.
