The Arizona treasurer’s race pits the state senate majority leader and former treasurer’s office employee against a tax attorney and former Maricopa County Democratic Party chairman who aspires to shake things up in the state office.

The fate of health care for 400,000 Arizonans could depend on what seven justices of the state Supreme Court believe voters said they wanted 25 years ago.

The complex formula that provides Arizona cities with a portion of the state’s tax revenues is nominally protected by a provision in the state Constitution requiring a two-thirds vote for the Legislature to tamper with it.

In his ruling this morning upholding the Medicaid expansion, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Douglas Gerlach wrote that the 36 GOP legislators challenging the measure failed both to prove that the hospital assessment was a tax instead of a fee and that it didn’t meet the exemptions laid out in Prop 108.

If a group of Republican lawmakers succeed in overturning a hospital assessment that funds the state’s 2013 Medicaid expansion, the victory could come at a tremendous cost.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion got its first day in court as attorneys argued over whether 36 Republican lawmakers who opposed the plan have the right to sue over it.

Arizona lawmakers are considering another special session now that the state Supreme Court has ruled that a legislative referral must be removed from the ballot because it violates the single-subject rule in the state Constitution.