Four lawmakers won’t be returning to the Capitol after losing their re-election bids in the August 30 primary election.

Republican Frank Schmuck upset incumbent Sen. Jeff Dial in the Legislative District 18 Senate primary, capitalizing on a campaign mounted almost exclusively on Dial’s questionable status as an Army veteran.

The Senate passed legislation May 3 that will end a year-long court battle between the State Board of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas.

A state Senate committee voted 5 to 2 Thursday for a bill that Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas says strips her office of its powers and hands them to an unelected board of appointees: the State Board of Education.

State schools chief Diane Douglas is lashing out of a bill to confirm the power of the state Board of Education, calling it “anti-voter, anti-democracy, anti-education, anti-parents and anti-children.’’

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s victory in the Senate turned out to be short-lived as two Republicans changed their votes on a measure asking voters to repeal the public campaign funding system, giving it enough votes to send it to the 2016 ballot.

A bill is in the works that would encourage public schools to fund full-day kindergarten by tapping into winnings from an inflation funding lawsuit.

Try to change Arizona’s budget-making process, and you’re bound to bruise a few egos. Sen.-elect Jeff Dial found that out the hard way this week, as word of his proposal to bring back appropriations subcommittees – once a staple of the budget process for Arizona lawmakers – spread throughout the Capitol.

In an interview yesterday afternoon, Dial laid out his ideas for bringing back approps subcommittees. The likeliest path is legislation, with intent language describing how the subcommittees would operate as a part of the budget process, that would require leadership in each chamber to re-establish the subcommittees via the Senate president’s and speaker’s rule-making process.

Brophy McGee gave a resounding endorsement of Dial’s plan to restore the subcommittee process in crafting a budget, saying her colleague is “right on the money” with the idea. “The budget process has become much more the purview of leadership, and members are left out in a sense and given a package to vote on.