One long-time Arizona politico will be watching tomorrow's Republican presidential debate with her checkbook in mind.

The question of whether a federal court allows the state to deny licenses to dreamers could depend on how hard the judges believe it is to get around Arizona without a car.

The debate over whether a hospital assessment that funds Arizona’s 2013 Medicaid expansion program should have needed a two-thirds vote in the Legislature hinged on not only whether it’s a tax or an assessment, but whether that even matters in determining if a legislative supermajority was required.

Conservative opponents of former Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan will finally get their day in court. Judge Douglas Gerlach will hear arguments in the case in Maricopa County Superior Court at 10 a.m. on Thursday.

For about a day this week, Mark Brnovich was governor. Maybe. The attorney general discovered Tuesday that Doug Ducey was off on vacation with his family in California. And Secretary of State Michele Reagan left Tuesday morning for a conference.

On May 28, the director of the state Department of Child Safety acknowledged that backlogs are growing again at the agency. Greg McKay told a legislative oversight committee that the number of hotline reports the agency receives each month is greater than the number of reports the staff can close.

Saying the president acted illegally, an attorney for the state wants appellate judges to once again allow the director of the Arizona Department of Transportation to refuse to issue licenses to “dreamers.”

A judge Thursday threw out a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by five former Arizona child welfare workers who were fired last year amid an agency scandal.

For a dozen years, Belen Sisa kept a secret even from her closest friends. To them, she was Belen the excellent student, the varsity cheerleader, the homecoming queen. In fact, Sisa sits on the edge of America’s dizzying immigration system – she and her parents are in the country illegally.

Former Gov. Jan Brewer is not going to have to give the notes she used for her “Scorpions for Breakfast” book to groups challenging the controversial immigration law she signed – at least not now.