There were many long nights back in their first months as Arizona lawmakers when two ambitious southern Arizona Republicans – seatmates who were first sent to the Capitol in 2008 – would share their grandest hopes and dreams in the modest setting of their rented Scottsdale trailer.

The chorus of Tea Party anger that drove conservative candidates to challenge their party’s elected officials faltered on election night, as no Republican lawmaker who supported Medicaid expansion was defeated in the primaries.

While Gov. Jan Brewer follows through on her pledge to help Republican lawmakers who backed her in her battle for Medicaid expansion, the governor is also lending a hand to legislative hopefuls who could fight for her vision after she leaves office.

In the three years since the ouster of conservative icon Russell Pearce from the state Senate, the conversation on illegal immigration has shifted. More Republicans now embrace the idea of extending citizenship to undocumented immigrants who were brought to America as children, and some public colleges even offer in-state tuition rates to those children.

Organizers of a grassroots conservative effort to refer Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to the ballot are keeping quiet about their progress as they prepare for the final month of their signature-gathering efforts.

The push to refer Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to the ballot began in earnest as opponents of the bill rallied at the Capitol before fanning out across the Valley to collect signatures.

The protracted fight for Medicaid expansion likely won’t end with Gov. Jan Brewer’s signing of the historic legislation.

Antenori and Gould’s United Republican Alliance of Principled Conservatives filed its citizen referendum against Medicaid expansion this morning (June 19). The referendum, which needs 86,405 valid signatures by Sept. 11, would refer the hospital tax and the expansion of eligibility to 133 percent of the federal poverty level to the November 2014 ballot.

Foes of expansion eye referendum

Even if voters approve her plan, a threatened citizen referendum on Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal could cast a pall over the 2014 election and throw the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System into chaos.

If the Legislature passes Medicaid expansion, two former senators and frequent foes of Brewer plan to refer it to the ballot with an all-volunteer effort that would rely on disaffected conservative activists to collect signatures.

Antenori and Gould spent the long weekend working on plans for a citizen referendum on Brewer’s Medicaid expansion. The two Brewer foes would need to collect 86,405 valid signatures in the first 90 days after sine die to put an expansion referendum on the ballot for 2014, which they believe can be done without paid volunteers.