A Republican lawmaker from Coolidge will carry the water for the governor’s forthcoming effort to enshrine a ban on so-called sanctuary cities in the state Constitution.

There are the historians and there are the history makers.

A veteran state lawmaker wants to put taxpayers of any city that enacts a "sanctuary'' policy on the financial hook if police fail to call immigration officials on someone who is a convicted felon, in this country illegally, and then goes on to commit another felony.

The Arizona GOP enlisted the party’s campaigner-in-chief at a Friday rally in Mesa to boost Republican enthusiasm for U.S. Senate candidate Martha McSally and down-ballot Republicans ahead of the congressional midterm election.

Calling the city of Phoenix’s policy of welcoming migrants more rhetoric than real, Attorney General Mark Brnovich concluded Monday that nothing the city council told the police to do violates state laws on illegal immigration.

Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, says Phoenix police are violating provisions of a contentious 2010 law known as SB 1070 that requires police to inquire about the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally.

As the title suggests, the production, housed at the Herberger Theater Center, revolves around the passage of Arizona’s SB1070, the immigration legislation that sparked international controversy after it was passed in April 2010.

At a forum in Phoenix this morning, business leaders emphasized how NAFTA has benefited the state’s economy, noting that more than 100,000 Arizona jobs depend on trade with its southern neighbor and roughly $17 billion in trade flows between Arizona and Mexico.

The 16-14 vote against SB1279 came despite exhortations from Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, who said it only makes sense to ensure that people who already are breaking federal law don’t get a chance to continue to prey on Arizonans.

Six years after its enactment, Arizona’s most famous anti-illegal immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, is now but a shell of its old self. The courts have defanged it, and a settlement reached recently between the state and its critics further defined and limited how the police may enforce it.