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

A defiant Gov. Jan Brewer today issued a call for a special session to secure the authority to sue the federal government over the health care law passed earlier this week. The special session is set for March 29.

Rallies for and against Proposition 100 set up at the Capitol on Friday, chanting at each other across the mall and showing their support for the cameras.

Ask any politician if they promote family values, and you'll get the answer you'd expect. Ask a group of politicians to define family values, though, and you'll likely get completely different, perhaps conflicting answers.

Most Americans won't see any real impact from the new federal health care law for several years, but the effects will be immediate for the hundreds of thousands of Arizonans who were about to lose Medicaid coverage.

A grassroots movement began several years ago to amend the state Constitution to allow Arizona residents the freedom to make all health care decisions without interference from government. But after years of pushing on the state level, the federal government has pushed back by passing a law that requires most Arizonans to buy health care insurance.

A bill that would let gun owners carry a concealed weapon without a permit cleared a hurdle in the Arizona House of Representatives March 25 and is now ready for a formal vote.

Senators voted March 25 to tax the sale of marijuana, anticipating that the public will approve its use for medical reasons this November.

Andrew Chavez has made his living from initiative ballot campaigns for a decade, but he's never seen anything like the debacle of 2008. "For years now, we've been dealing with a system that wasn't broken, but definitely needed fixing," he said. "By far and away, (2008) was the worst year."

Lawmakers need to be held accountable for how much they've done to support public education during the state's budget crisis, the leader of a parents group said March 24.

A system for tracking school expenditures and whether money spent on specific programs improves student performance would make schools more efficient and accountable, according to a group of business and education leaders.