Despite objections from the AARP and a coalition that once defeated the payday lending industry, lending firms can soon collect the maximum interest fee on slightly bigger loans.

Gov. Jan Brewer made Child Protective Services the centerpiece of her legislative agenda this year, but after four months of debate, lawmakers sent her a budget that leaves much of the work and funding necessary to create a new child protection agency unfinished.

The Arizona House has begun debating a state budget plan that adds spending to the plan passed by the Senate.

Shope eyes smaller districts for state representatives

Rep. T.J. Shope wants to cut Arizona’s massive House of Representatives districts in half.

The first-term lawmaker hasn’t completed his plans yet, but is strongly leaning toward a proposal that would split the House districts in half. Rather than have each legislative district elect two House members at large, Shope’s plan would create two separate House districts that would be contained within each Senate district.

Long before lawmakers took a vote on Medicaid expansion, Republican precinct committeemen across the state issued a warning to GOP legislators: If you vote for expansion, we will do everything we can to take you out in the next primary election.

Long before casting their votes for Medicaid expansion and a bipartisan budget proposal, Republican lawmakers who chose to support Gov. Jan Brewer had been issued a warning: Vote yes at your own risk.

House and Senate approve Medicaid expansion, ending months of debate

After a bitter and prolonged debate that ripped apart Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Arizona lawmakers approved Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal and sent it to her for her signature.

Republican Rep. T.J. Shope started out as a blank slate on Medicaid expansion, with no opinion on the governor’s proposal and no substantial background knowledge of the issue.

Freshman Republican Rep. Adam Kwasman of Oro Valley came up to the Legislature with big plans to enact big ideas.

When Gov. Jan Brewer announced her proposal to expand Medicaid to the full amount advocated by the federal health care law, Republican leadership in the House and Senate received a fight they didn’t ask for, and one they didn’t know was coming.