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A pro-life bill scheduled for a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee includes language that is nearly identical to a proposal from a leading evangelical Christian group that sought to limit abortion providers’ ability to participate in Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan.

House Speaker Andy Tobin is hopeful he can get at least 31 Republicans to support the House version. But he still thinks spending is too high.

In case you forgot, Gov. Jan Brewer has other priorities this year besides getting the Legislature to approve Medicaid expansion. The Republican governor also wants to completely overhaul the state's sales tax collection system.

What a difference four years makes. In 2009, Gov. Jan Brewer sued the Legislature over its refusal to send her a package of budget bills that she was certain to veto, leading the Arizona Supreme Court to rule that lawmakers couldn’t hold back measures that were ready for the governor.

House Speaker Andy Tobin is dropping his proposed resolution to send Medicaid expansion to the voters, and will deal with the issue in the Legislature, one way or another.

A fight is brewing in the House that Speaker Andy Tobin didn’t ask for, and he’s trying to keep his caucus members from tearing each other apart over Medicaid expansion – and stop the budget from getting hijacked.

The Arizona Senate’s passage of a budget plan that includes Medicaid expansion on May 16 was a tremendous victory for Gov. Jan Brewer, as well as the lawmakers who stuck their necks out for the governor — most notably Senate Majority Leader John McComish, who sponsored the amendment that added expansion to the budget plan.

House Speaker Andy Tobin has steadfastly said there aren’t enough votes to pass Medicaid expansion through the House, although he seems to be the only one who still thinks that.

Most lawmakers, even ardent Medicaid expansion opponents, acknowledge there are enough votes to pass Medicaid expansion in the House, and that they have been there for several weeks.

But Tobin said there is still a single vote missing that makes all the difference: his.

Gov. Jan Brewer wasn’t kidding around when she told the Legislature to stop sending her bills.

After weeks of discussions on possible pro-life language for her Medicaid expansion plan, Gov. Jan Brewer is through trying to find a way to bar abortion providers from participating in AHCCCS.