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

We didn’t have to wait long for the first sign of good news for immigration reform in 2014.

In order to achieve a final agreement with Iran, U.S. negotiators must be given as much leverage as possible. Should Iran violate the terms of the current agreement, or fail to reach a final agreement with Western negotiators, new and increased sanctions should be levied on the Iranians.

On Jan. 1, Colorado opened its doors to this nation’s first legal sale of recreational marijuana. Lost in the buzz is the documented impact of legal marijuana on Colorado children.

While we rightly have concern over the welfare of children in the more than 6,000 cases that Child Protective Services failed to investigate, imagine what the reaction would be if 150,000 people in Arizona went missing and there was no investigation.

Imagine getting laid off from your job and struggling to support your family. Your first thoughts? How will you make rent or keep up with your mortgage payment? How will you buy groceries and pay the utility bills? Thankfully, unemployment benefits are a safety net while you look for work in a tough economy, to ease the financial burden and stress when you fall on hard times.

The balance sheets of Arizona cities, towns and counties will look very different next year simply because of changes in some key accounting rules. While accounting rules generally do not raise the interest of taxpayers, the new accounting standards on public pensions will require local governments to publish their long-term pension obligations. Addressing the long-term costs of public pensions has been a major focus of many conservative groups and this new disclosure may add new fuel to their interest.

By requiring that pet stores in the city acquire dogs only from humane sources, the Phoenix City Council took an important step toward helping to protect the millions of dogs suffering in puppy mills. The ordinance will help shrink the supply of puppy mill dogs flowing into our market, thereby boosting adoptions for homeless animals and increasing sales for responsible dog breeders.

“You do the adult crime, you do the adult time.” This is the motto of many judges, prosecutors, and even community members here in Arizona.

In her Dec. 1 op-ed on AZ Central, Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk echoed a misleading statement from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) website claiming that the agency "permits or funds studies on therapeutic benefits of marijuana."

Even as Obamacare is trying to self-destruct, its advocates suggest a détente in which “Republicans recognize the conservative nature of the law,” in the words of Austin Frakt in Bloomberg News.