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In his second year at the helm of the House and in his final year in the chamber, Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, navigated uncharted waters when he asked members to expel one of their own.

After 16 years as an Arizona state representative, then senator, Senate President Steve Yarbrough is calling it quits.

After more than two decades at the Legislature, Minority Leader Rebecca Rios, D-Phoenix, said she thought it was pretty safe to assume how her last session in the House would play out.

In her last year as a senator, Minority Leader Katie Hobbs experienced the usual highs and lows of session. The Phoenix Democrat now leaves office to run for secretary of state.

Despite having cast a historical vote to expel Yuma Republican Don Shooter on February 1, some lawmakers in the Arizona House of Representatives tried to put one of his victims — a colleague of theirs — on trial.

Lawmakers passed 369 bills, 30.6 percent of the 1,206 bills introduced in the 2018 session. Of those 369 bills, Ducey signed 346, or 93.8 percent of all the bills that were approved.

Only 19 state lawmakers, or 21 percent, made it to work every day and also registered a vote on 100 percent of the measures that went up on the board during the 53rd Legislature’s second regular session.

The Arizona Legislature referred two measures to the ballot this year, more than lawmakers referred in 2016 when they instead focused their attention on trying to defeat several citizen initiatives.

Now Shooter claims he’s willing to serve, but only if a small band of Yuma Republicans can gather enough petitions for the disgraced politician to qualify for the ballot. Shooter was voted out of the Legislature in February after a House investigation found he serially sexually harassed colleagues and lobbyists.

Democrat lawmakers are using Friday's school shooting in Texas in a bid to get Gov. Doug Ducey to call lawmakers into special session to adopt new gun laws.