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

What has a heart, lungs, liver, kidney, thymus, but not basic human rights? According to Planned Parenthood, preborn children. Like millions of Americans, I was horrified to see a top Planned Parenthood official callously discussing the strategic dismemberment of preborn children for the possible sale of their organs.

The funding of Arizona’s schools in a way that commits to equity and excellence is one of the most important policy conversations taking place today. Largely due to education reforms Arizona has seen over the last 20 years, we now have some of the best public schools in the country.

It has been just over a month now since Trump’s announcement and there have been hundreds of interviews, thousands of articles, tens of millions of text messages and hundreds of millions of tweets about the man.

The rapid growth of technology will impact our lives in meaningful ways. At the same time it poses a challenge for state and local governments that are charged with establishing rules and regulations that often draw important revenue.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry is proud to have played host earlier this year to events featuring three of the leading Republican presidential contenders: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. I expect we will welcome additional candidates from both parties in the fall.

This spring, Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill that had been championed by Rep. Heather Carter, Sen. Nancy Barto and physician leaders to give Arizonans direct access to lab tests. That groundbreaking law went into effect last week, ushering in a new era of preventive care.

If you only listened to supporters of Proposition 104, it would be difficult to know what the $30 billion transit tax initiative is really about. Even the ballot language written by the city tries to hide the fact that Prop 104 nearly doubles the transit sales tax over the next 35 years, a multibillion dollar tax hike to fund light rail expansion that Phoenix residents can ill afford.

I recently learned that our law firm was recognized one of America’s top corporate law firms in the 2015 Annual Law and the Boardroom Study conducted by NYSE Governance Services and FTI Consulting, Inc. That is an honor, to be sure, but it made me think.

As the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), I frequently travel throughout the U.S. And in my journeys, I’m quite often struck by the fact that so many families are struggling to find financial security. I find it troubling that hardworking Americans are often eking out a living, barely making it from paycheck to paycheck.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, handed down just last week, was a unanimous victory for free speech. But that Reed was an overwhelming win has led some to downplay its importance.