House Speaker Andy Tobin easily outraised his party-mates in the three-way House primary in Northern Arizona, the latest finance reports filed with the Secretary of State showed.

Kirk Adams buttressed his campaign contributions with an $88,000 loan to give him the lead in fundraising for this reporting period over Matt Salmon, but the former House Speaker still couldn’t match Salmon’s contributions from individuals and political committees or his own spending.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Jan Brewer are hoping to jumpstart budget negotiations and thaw the relationship between them that saw the governor last month direct her staff not to meet with House and Senate staff.

Arizona officials have asked to replace federal standards under the No Child Left Behind act with state-level student performance standards and a school accountability system that they say will be more efficient and less burdensome.

Five pieces of new legislation introduced by House Speaker Andy Tobin have taken power-grabbing to a whole new level, and would set redistricting back to a time of shadowy legislative deals. We could start by asking the now worn-out phrase, “What part of independent does the Arizona House not understand?”

While Arizona has endured one of longest and deepest recessions in American history, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns has stepped forward to be a strong partner with Gov. Jan Brewer and state lawmakers as they sought solutions to reverse our fiscal crisis.

Arizona’s 91 cities and towns cut their spending by nearly 30 percent on average. We have responded to this crisis by doing more with less.

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

Arizona legislators are imposing new restrictions on demonstrations and other public gatherings at the Capitol complex, a reaction to loud noise and congestion resulting from activities that include protests against legislation on illegal immigration in the past two years.

The timing for Andy Tobin’s ascension to speaker of the House was pretty favorable. The state is beginning to see an uptick in revenues due to a recovering economy, so the battle over the budget is likely to be less adversarial this session than it was in previous years.

But Tobin cautions against anyone getting the impression that the state has money to burn. As long as the state has debt to pay off, he said he doesn’t think that the unexpected revenue should be seen as a surplus.

It hasn’t been a banner past couple years for the Democrats. Faced with a Republican supermajority, their power at the Legislature has been limited.

Assessing this year’s session, House Minority Leader Chad Campbell has a similarly dim outlook. Democrats are still outnumbered two-to-one, and a looming election may mean lawmakers focus on more ideological issues. But there are some promising signs: new leadership in the House and Senate, plus some unexpected money for the state.