Gov. Jan Brewer is seeking to fundamentally alter the way state employees are hired, fired and managed.

In short, the governor wants to make it easier for administrators to hire and fire workers.

In a two-page outline of her “personnel reform” proposal, obtained by the Arizona Capitol Times today, newly hired rank-and-file employees would no longer be considered “covered,” meaning the state would strip away some protections and rights to appeal they are currently afforded.

The political tango over the shape of the state’s budget for the next few years has begun.

Legislative leaders met with Gov. Jan Brewer Tuesday, but the two sides couldn’t yet agree on how to proceed with crafting the state’s spending plan.

In 1998, Arizona voters decided to bar the Legislature from making changes to initiatives and referendums without a three–quarters vote in each house. But Rep. Chester Crandell has proposed that any voter-approved measure using public funds later face reauthorization votes by the public.

Since statehood, the Arizona-Washington D.C. political connection has been unbelievably strong and uncharacteristically influential, especially for a state with a relatively small, though growing population.

Don Bivens reported bringing in $390,000 for his U.S. Senate campaign in the fourth quarter of 2011, including $160,000 of his own money.

If Republicans go along with House Speaker Andy Tobin’s plan to force a special election that would seek to change the state’s legislative and congressional maps, it will cost Arizona more than $8 million.

Arizona State University President Michael Crow warned a legislative committee today that the Legislature’s micromanagement of the state’s universities is affecting their bottom line, stifling innovation and is unsustainable.

Democratic lawmakers today outlined their goals for the 2012 legislative session, stressing a need for bipartisan cooperation, while also ripping Republican-led legislation of recent years.

The road from the end of the last legislative session to the beginning of the new one was full of potholes for Gov. Jan Brewer and the Legislature.

Both sides say there’s nothing unusual about the two branches butting heads, and say they’ve moved past the disagreements of 2011. But there was no shortage of feuds between Brewer and the Legislature.

A state House committee Tuesday narrowly endorsed scrapping a state law the prevents legislators from serving as paid lobbyists at the Capitol for a year after leaving office.

Its author, Rep. Jack W. Harper, R-Surprise, said the moratorium is intended to keep lawmakers from influencing legislation but fails to recognize that staff members are even better positioned to become lobbyists. He said it’s unfair to deny former lawmakers the same opportunities allowed for staff members.