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

The 20th century thinker G.K. Chesterton once likened democracy to blowing one’s nose: You ought to do it yourself, even if you do it badly.

Tony Bouie, the former NFL-player-turned-politician-turned bureaucrat, is shaking things up at the Arizona State Lottery, where as executive director he has hunkered down to privatize some of his agency’s work, posting subcontracting jobs online and increasing the percentage of contracting work that’s being done by in-state firms.

As a consensus, begrudgingly accepted even by conservative leaders, emerges that the state needs to put more money into public schools, some wonder if the time is ripe for a “grand bargain.”

Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, has decided not to seek a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission. Instead, Lesko said she will run re-election to the Senate.

Arizona is on track to collect revenues not seen since before the beginning of the Great Recession, according to a forecast by group of economists advising state policymakers.

Often, today’s political activism springs from yesterday’s upheavals, when a crisis alters the landscape and shapes the minds of a young generation. Such is the case with Tyler Montague, a banker from Mesa and now president of Public Integrity Alliance.

Erin Garvey is sitting at a Mayo Clinic office in Phoenix, wearing a white lab coat and green pants. She has 10 months left in her five-year residency training. After that, she’s off to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she’ll learn more about minimal invasive surgery.

The head of a powerful Evangelical-Christian lobby in Arizona today upped the rhetorical ante against Planned Parenthood by calling abortion a “modern-day slave trade.”

Let’s face it. Lobbying isn’t the most popular of professions. Often, the only times the public hears of lobbyists are in connection with something unsavory. But inasmuch as Americans need politicians to bargain with each other on their behalf, so, too, lobbyists play a crucial role in America’s experiment in democracy.

After efforts to reach a settlement in the K-12 inflation funding lawsuit faltered this month, both sides in the case see it going all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court. But as the case drags on, the fiscal risks mount for the state.