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

WASHINGTON - As President Obama's first nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court faced senators in open hearings last week, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., emerged as a leading Republican voice in raising questions about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's record.

The Arizona Republican Party last year returned a six-figure contribution that came from an unregistered political committee, but nearly all of that money ended up back in the party's coffers before November's elections. Four business owners gave the state Republican Party a total of $90,000 last fall, only days after the party was forced to return $105,000 to a group known only as SCA.

TUCSON - Lawyers for former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi have objected to a federal magistrate's denial of their motion to dismiss the public corruption case against him on constitutional grounds. Renzi's lawyers contend that the government violated the U.S. Constitution's "speech or debate" clause in wiretapping his conversations with aides concerning a failed land swap deal in which he's been accused of conspiracy.

On July 13, Governor Jan Brewer signed S1449 into law. The legislation, sponsored by Republican Sen. Linda Gray, applies retroactive effects to a 2006 law change that implemented what is known as "castle doctrine" into state law.

GREEN VALLEY - Humanitarian groups promise court action after they were ticketed for littering by federal agents.

A consortium of agricultural interests claimed victory July 9 after a judge ruled the Arizona Legislature acted illegally last year when it swept $160,000 from accounts that held voluntary, private contributions. The lawsuit targeted former Gov. Janet Napolitano, State Treasurer ...

President Barack Obama has announced that he will nominate Dennis Burke to be the next U.S. District Attorney for Arizona.  Burke was nominated along with Steven Dettelbach, Northern District of Ohio; Brendan Johnson, District of South Dakota; Karen Loeffler, District ...

To some observers, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that an Arizona school violated a 13-year-old student's rights by strip-searching her represented a defeat for officials working to stem the flow of drugs into schools. To others, the verdict upheld the idea that schools can sometimes act recklessly, even when fighting to keep illegal substances off school grounds.

Arizona-based grocer Bashas' has declared a breakthrough in an ongoing defamation lawsuit against a national labor union and its local allies. The breakthrough: A judge has decided to waive a confidentiality agreement that so far has kept some information from creeping into the trial, including what a Bashas' attorney has said amounts to a threat of extortion by a union official.

In late June, the Arizona Supreme Court delivered what could be considered a draw for Gov. Jan Brewer and Republican legislative leadership, who argued over how long the Legislature can withhold bills from the governor after they have been approved. ...