After a year, even the best of couples tend to settle into a routine once the honeymoon period comes to an end. Few at the Capitol, however, are expecting Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican-controlled Legislature to lose the magic they had last year.

Lawmakers, lobbyist and other Capitol denizens may soon be able to grab a cup of joe without leaving 1700 W. Washington, at least if Secretary of State Michele Reagan gets her wish.

In Arizona, no one’s stock at the Capitol is higher at the end of 2015 than Gov. Doug Ducey’s. Several others were also ascendant in 2015. Here’s our list of the hot and not-so-hot personalities and issues that populated the Arizona Capitol Times’ pages during the past 12 months.

A Phoenix mother locked herself to doors at the historic Capitol building Tuesday afternoon to protest the Department of Child Safety, which she claims wrongfully took custody of her son.

Built by Charles O. Brown (the taller man at left in the photo), a gambler said to have been a crack shot who carried several notches on his gun, the Congress Hall Saloon was the unlikely spot where the first Territorial Legislature in Tucson convened. The Capitol building, a series of adobe rooms with dirt floors and mud roofs, was spurned by lawmakers, who preferred to caucus at San Agustin Cathedral and hold informal meetings in the back room of Brown’s establishment.

A vital cog in the Arizona music industry for two decades, Charlie Levy is the owner of the promotions company Stateside Presents, which books acts for various venues throughout the Valley and Tucson.

The bald pate and rotund body seen here on the Capitol veranda is that of George W. P. Hunt, photographed on Valentine’s Day, 1912, delivering his inaugural address as the state’s first governor.

While the Senate Appropriations Committee took testimony on the budget bills this afternoon, several hundred teachers, parents and students gathered outside the chambers to protest proposed cuts to public schools and state universities.

Soon-to-be-freshmen representatives swarmed the halls of the state House on Dec. 8 and 9 for a two-day crash course, cramming in bits and pieces of what they need to know to be successful lawmakers.

In the upcoming 2015 legislative session, one-third of the lawmakers in the Arizona House of Representatives will be freshmen. The 21 freshmen lawmakers – including four who are returning to the Capitol after absences, some for more than a decade – come from diverse backgrounds. They include a surgeon, a dentist, two teachers, two restaurant owners, a judge and a talk show host, to name a few.