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Ducey signs $9.1B Arizona budget plan that cuts spending
Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday he intends to approve legislation cutting millions more in taxes even as he signed a budget that cuts millions of dollars from education and social programs.
House OKs bills blocking state funding for federal policies
The Arizona House has given initial approval to two bills blocking state funding for federal policies.
Coalitions block GOP bills to repeal Common Core, boost school choice
After campaigning on an education platform of increasing school choice and doing away with Common Core, many conservative Republicans in the Legislature are frustrated to find that they can’t make good on their promises to constituents.
House kills STO expansion bill, cancels votes on other school choice bills
Republicans and Democrats joined forces in the Arizona House of Representatives today to kill a bill that would have expanded School Tuition Organization tax credits. That led Republican leadership to unexpectedly cancel another vote on two other “school choice” bills.
Lawmakers consider a more deliberate approach to solving latest budget crisis
With hardly time to pause, policymakers lunged from one budget solution to another at the height of the recent fiscal crisis, spawning a chaotic period of accounting gimmicks, borrowing and budget slashing.
House Appropriations Committee gets new chairman
The powerful Appropriations Committee of the Arizona House is getting a new chairman. Term limits barred long-serving committee Chairman John Kavanagh from running for re-election to the House, and he was elected earlier this month to the Senate.
Not seeing eye to eye: Optometrists, ophthalmologists battle over prescriptions
Optometrists want the ability to prescribe steroids, hydrocodone pain killers and other potentially dangerous drugs, but lawmakers say a bill allowing them to do so is circumventing the legislative process and would put the public at risk.
Legislative panel votes to increase cost of obtaining public records
Citing a need to protect government against the costs of excessive public records requests by citizens, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to a bill that would increase the cost of obtaining public records that take government employees more than eight hours to compile and redact.
Livingston scores a perfect legislative batting average
The award for best legislative batting average for the session — the calculation of bills introduced versus bills signed into law — goes to Rep. David Livingston, a freshman Republican lawmaker from Peoria who has been vocally critical of the governor.
Moratorium leads to near-record number of Brewer vetoes
The bill moratorium that rankled lawmakers as Gov. Jan Brewer started applying pressure to pass her Medicaid expansion plan helped push her to a near-record number of vetoes in 2013.
Brewer vetoed 26 bills this year, the second highest total of her career, behind the 29 she rejected in 2011.
Rally kicks off Medicaid referendum drive
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.
Medicaid expansion coalition flexes its muscles
The bipartisan coalition forming around Medicaid expansion flexed their political muscle on Monday, shooting down a pair of amendments and approving another amendment to a Medicaid expansion supporter’s bill involving school bonding.
