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Advocates for state services and programs shouldn't hold out hope that Arizona's improving fiscal situation means cuts made to keep the state budget in the black will be reversed any time soon, an official said Friday.

Gov. Jan Brewer and Republican legislative leaders are considering another effort to remove the chair of the state redistricting commission, despite the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling that an initial attempt was improper.

A lawyer for the ousted chair of Arizona's redistricting commission says the commission would be a joke as an independent body if Gov. Jan Brewer's removal of Colleen Mathis is allowed to stand.

Civic activists who wrote the constitutional amendment approved by Arizona voters a decade ago to create the state's redistricting commission say Gov. Jan Brewer's removal of the panel's chair violates the measure's intent to take political map-drawing out of the hands of governors and state legislators.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to temporarily reinstate the state redistricting commission's chairwoman who was ousted a week earlier by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in a move that has touched off a legal and political battle.

Republican legislators on Monday called the state redistricting commission's work fundamentally flawed as the panel said its independence had been undermined by Gov. Jan Brewer's accusations that it violated constitutional mapping criteria and legal processes.

Gov. Jan Brewer provides behind-the-scenes details in her new book about her handling of Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement law last year, including a tense meeting with President Barack Obama and her administration's attempts to avoid being branded racist over the crackdown on illegal immigrants.

A federal judge Thursday refused to derail a challenge to a 2010 state constitutional amendment, dealing a setback to Arizona's effort to require union elections by secret ballot before companies can be unionized.

The number of abortions performed in Arizona dropped by about a third in September after implementation of new state restrictions and requirements.

Gov. Jan Brewer and other Republican officials are criticizing a draft congressional redistricting commission approved by a state commission for use in elections in the coming decade.