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Reagan walks back aide’s comments
Despite Election Director Eric Spencer’s comments to the contrary earlier this month, Reagan will continue enforcing a law requiring IEs to notify targets of attack ads within 24 hours. Secretary of state spokesman Matt Roberts said Reagan shares Spencer’s belief that the law is unconstitutional, but will not cease enforcement.
The squeaky wheel gets to avoid the axe
The possibility of the feds refusing to approve a 5-percent cut in Medicaid provider reimbursements appears to have been a major motivator in AHCCCS and the Ducey administration’s decision to find an alternative.
Un momento, por favor
Amid his trip to Mexico City, Ducey issued a proclamation stating, among other things, that it is the intent of his administration to follow and enforce all court decisions regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, “and to review Arizona Executive Order 2012-06,” which Brewer issued to affirm that Arizona’s barring illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses exten[...]
Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
Douglas told our reporter she has chosen the group that is going to comb through Title 15 in an effort to rid schools of unnecessary mandates and administrative burdens, and it won’t include any lobbyists or “alphabet soups,” a reference to the many education groups that are generally known by their initials.
The Pope and abortion reversal
Arizona’s law requiring doctors to tell women that a medication abortion can be reversed has its roots in a 1968 letter from Pope Paul VI. The controversial encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” affirms the church’s ban on contraception and abortion. The encyclical set off a firestorm and was hailed and criticized by many, including bishops and Catholic theologians.
Ducey: Land trust dollars are not for K-12 settlement
Ducey sat down for an interview with Arizona Public Media’s Christopher Conover on Friday’s “Arizona Week” to talk about his state land trust reform proposal.
With any luck, we’ll know on Monday
With the US Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling looming in Arizona’s political foreground, one railbird with knowledge of the situation said Biggs and Gowan plan to call a bipartisan joint legislative committee to start drafting maps and collecting public comment, should the court rule in the Legislature’s favor.
Absence makes the rumor mill spin faster
Farley said he suspects it was no accident that Biggs and Gowan were no-shows at Ducey’s press conference last week to announcing his land trust reform plans, and neither is their silence on the issue since the announcement
Always conservative
The Ninth Floor used what it insists are conservative estimates of state land trust sales to reach the figures that Ducey touted in his K-12 funding plan last week. The governor’s office estimates an average of $100 million in land sales for each year of Ducey’s plan.
Disaster (partially) avoided
The triple whammy that Arizona’s health care industry faced with the passage of the FY16 budget – a 5-percent AHCCCS provider cut, the lawsuit against Medicaid expansion and the looming US Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell – has been reduced to a possible double whammy after AHCCCS and the Ninth Floor decided not to press ahead with the proposed provider cuts.
Reagan seeking to modernize state laws
Reagan is planning a series of policy discussions to help hash out a 2016 legislative agenda that will include major overhauls in three key areas: the secretary of state’s election procedures manual, which governs all elections in the state; election laws, with an emphasis on campaign finance issues; and lobbyist registration and disclosure laws.
Education advocates to Ducey: Let’s find a long-term fix
While public education advocates welcomed the governor’s plan, many pointed out that what he is offering isn’t permanent and others insisted the funding stream is insufficient given the incessant cuts to K-12 funding over the years.
