The Senate assigned two House budget bills to the Appropriations Committee on Aug. 7, signaling that changes will be made to the budget deal that the governor and Republicans had reached.

More than a week after the governor and legislative leaders announced a new budget deal, the state was still without a complete budget and time was running out to call a special election in early November. Things have ground to ...

The Senate will meet today (Aug. 4), but it’s unclear how many senators will show up. Gov. Jan Brewer has been working the phones in the past few days to lobby lawmakers for their vote on an agreement that she and Republican legislative leaders reached last month.

Don’t expect the budget to gain much traction this week – at least not the version passed by the House that includes a mix of income tax cuts, a 5 percent reduction in the state work force and a ballot referral ...

Lawmakers saw little success in 2009 when it came to getting legislation approved. Much like the mighty Casey of baseball lore, representatives and senators were sent back to the dugout with little to show for their turn at bat.

Fewer lawmakers are likely to be present for the special session July 20. About a third of senators and representatives planned to attend the National Conference of State Legislatures summit in Philadelphia City this week, according to the Senate and the House.

The lawsuit that led to the creation of the modern behavioral health care system in Maricopa County has created what many experts say is an artificial set of standards that ignores the real needs of patients. But confusion and disagreement over ways to improve the system have delayed the kind of meaningful reform that almost everyone in the health care community recognizes as necessary.

A four-year battle for Sen. Carolyn Allen came to end with a stroke of the governor's pen. Gov. Jan Brewer on July 13 signed S1018, which raises the burden of proof for medical malpractice lawsuits against emergency room physicians. Allen, a Scottsdale Republican, had tried unsuccessfully for years to get the measure passed, only to see it fail to reach the governor's desk.

“Do you intend to go through these whole COW columns, or are we at least going to have a potty break?” – Sen. Carolyn Allen, asking a pertinent question on the Senate floor during an extended committee of the whole ...

Supporters of a bill that would make the state’s medical-malpractice laws more stringent gained a victory June 24 during a hearing of the House Health and Human Services Committee.  S1018 would raise the bar of proof required to convict an ...