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

As Democrats eye their chances of winning a majority in the House and reversing, tying or narrowing their margins in the Senate, they’ll be doing so with far fewer candidates.

The 2020 primary ballot is set and at least 15 current lawmakers will breeze to re-election with no primary or general election challenger, but some candidates could be in rough waters for not providing a comfortable cushion in case their signatures are challenged.

A second subpoena has been issued in the House Ethics probe into Rep. David Cook, an embattled Globe Republican who’s the subject of a pair of ethics complaints filed earlier in the year.

The worsening COVID-19 pandemic has sidelined the state Legislature’s plans to reconvene on April 13, according to internal emails from top lawmakers shared with the Arizona Capitol Times.

There are no gratuitous fights . . . every fight costs you something. And the other thing I learned was you need to know who you’re fighting because the people whose names are on the bill are some of the people who are really, really, really trying to get something done.

A fight over document discovery is brewing in a House ethics investigation into an embattled Republican lawmaker.

The Arizona Legislature will adjourn until April 13 after lawmakers in the House passed a $50 million deal Monday intended to mitigate the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An early adjournment to the Legislature to avert the spread of COVID-19 would effectively kill a host of proposed ballot referrals.

The Capitol is at an impasse after House leadership moved to recess until next Monday, abandoning hopes of inking an emergency budget measure and suspending the session by the end of the week in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

In any other week, Rep. Anthony Kern’s dinner choices wouldn’t have mattered to anyone but the most fervent crusader against lobbyist influence. This week, depending on who you ask, he’s either a hero fighting government overreach or the face of irresponsibility.