HB2645 is a relatively obscure bill compared to the debates surrounding school finance, private prisons and industry wars lawmakers are gearing up to engage in. But the country’s youngest self-made woman billionaire thinks the proposed law will revolutionize health care.

Behind the legislation that engulfed Arizona in a firestorm over the treatment of gays is an influential Evangelical-Christian lobby that is deep in the trenches of America’s culture wars.

Agents with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office had a sticky problem when they walked out of lobbyist Gary Husk’s office on Jan. 27, 2012, with documents and computer data seized as evidence.

WASHINGTON (AP) ai??i?? Prospects for comprehensive immigration legislation this year grew murkier on the eve of an all-out push by a coalition of business, religious and law enforcement to convince the House to overhaul the decades-old system.

At a recent Phoenix City Council District 8 candidate forum in a central Phoenix church, the pews were nearly filled with roughly 80 political junkies getting their fix.

Almost daily, Arizona politicians face an army of lobbyists who are ready to spend money on dinners, drinks, parties and travel, aimed at currying favor and eventually bending the public policy agenda toward the will of their sometimes deep-pocketed clients. ...

Sen. Jerry Lewis, the Mesa Republican who ran on a platform of transparency and lobbying reform during the recall election last year, today unveiled a proposal to tighten the reporting requirements for legislators and lobbyists and make it easier for the public to find out how the two groups interact.

Lewis said the proposal has the backing of Senate President Steve Pierce and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who has investigated the Fiesta Bowl scandal, where public officials received free tickets and took free trips without properly disclosing them.

A handful of elected officials in the Arizona Legislature have repeatedly tried to intimidate and silence Goldwater Institute analysts out of giving testimony in support of or in opposition to legislation this year. In one case, an elected official forced a Goldwater Institute attorney, who asked to speak on behalf of the Institute, to refrain from speaking because she was not a registered lobbyist for the Institute. Although the attorney was later allowed to testify after signing in as representing only herself, the instance demonstrates that certain Arizona legislators want citizens to curtail their First Amendment rights before daring to talk or write about public policy with their representatives.

While the slew of measures targeting public unions appeared to have re-energized organized labor in Arizona, it also exposed their inability to fully unite amid a sustained attack from foes. The discord over tactics was palpable on March 1, when hundreds of union members and their supporters protested at the state Capitol, but many public unions stayed away.

The Fiesta Bowl's former top executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge to settle allegations stemming from a political donations scandal.