This year's most outstanding quips, gibes and utterances.

A former state senator who resigned in January over a domestic violence incident involving his ex-girlfriend has filed a lawsuit against Phoenix.

Not since the AzScam scandal in 1991 have so many Arizona lawmakers left office amid criminal allegations in a single year.

The current scandals could cast a cloud over the state’s general election. Lawmakers who leave in disgrace tend to discourage cynical voters from going to the polls, pollsters and players from the AzScam bribery scandal said.

Attorneys for a business run by Rep. Kate Brophy McGee’s husband persuaded a judge to seal court records in an ongoing lawsuit on the grounds that it could harm her re-election chances.

But they also contend that her political career is being used to blackmail and extort the business of her husband, Bob McGee.

In the $10 million notice of claim he filed against the City of Phoenix June 29, Bundgaard is asserting that the city, the police and his political enemies colluded to ensure his downfall. He claimed that a police detective, Bryn Ray, not only aided Gould’s ethics committee as a “consultant,” but the police also deliberately withheld information from him.

A former state legislator who resigned in January over a domestic violence incident involving his ex-girlfriend filed a $10 million notice of claim Friday against Phoenix police and city officials. Scott Bundgaard stepped down before he had to testify to a Senate Ethics Committee on whether he should be disciplined for the February 2011 incident.

A judge ruled today that Sen. Rich Crandall submitted enough signatures to stay on the ballot, paving the way for a Senate Republican primary with the man who challenged his candidacy: Rep. John Fillmore.

Nearly two years after Republicans took advantage of an insurgent mood that swept the nation and secured supermajority control of the Legislature, the GOP in Arizona can boast of enacting state budgets that eschewed accounting gimmicks, assumed cautious revenue estimates and earmarked money for anticipated rainy days ahead.

Senate President Steve Pierce, a rancher from Prescott, has a habit of walking into difficult situations.

He did it once three years ago, when he became the de facto majority whip, and he did it again last year, when he vied for the position and became Senate president after Russell Pearce was ousted in a special recall election in November.

A federal grand jury today charged Rep. Ben Arredondo with bribery, fraud, attempted extortion and false statements for allegedly taking thousands of dollars in game tickets and other perks in exchange for brokering property deals in Tempe.