Author

Caitlin Sievers

Caitlin Sievers

Caitlin joined the Arizona Mirror in 2022 with almost 10 years of experience as a reporter and editor, holding local government leaders accountable from newsrooms across the West and Midwest. She's won statewide awards in Nebraska, Indiana and Wisconsin for reporting, photography and commentary.

Liz Harris claims she didn’t do anything wrong by inviting person to air wild conspiracy theory

By: - March 30, 2023

Republican Rep. Liz Harris doesn’t believe that any “direct criminal allegations” were made during a committee meeting she organized wherein a speaker accused the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a laundry list of local and state officials of being involved in an illicit money laundering scheme orchestrated by the Sinaloa drug cartel.  […]

Survivors of sex crimes want ‘lifetime probation’ to look more like a lifetime

By: - March 23, 2023

Lifetime probation doesn’t always last a lifetime. Some victims of sex crimes want their perpetrators to spend more time being closely monitored and receiving treatment before they can petition for release from lifetime probation.  A measure backed by legislative Republicans would require sex offenders placed on lifetime probation to complete either 10 or 20 years […]

Supreme Court dismisses all but one of Kari Lake’s election claims

By: - March 22, 2023

The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected six of the seven claims that failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake made in her bid to have the court overturn her election loss. The court remanded the remaining claim, regarding signature verification in Maricopa County, back to the trial court for reconsideration.  Lake, the Donald Trump-endorsed standard-bearer for the […]

Arizona Republicans say their anti-drag show bills don’t target drag shows

By: - March 22, 2023

Arizona GOP lawmakers are continuing to promote legislation targeting drag shows, while insisting that their proposals aren’t actually about drag shows at all.  During a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said that the descriptions of Senate Bill 1698 that he read from the “liberal media” were much different than his […]

GOP bill would remove Arizona from ERIC, the database designed to combat voter fraud

By: - March 22, 2023

Following in the footsteps of six conservative-led states, Senate Republicans want to pull Arizona’s membership from a multistate coalition that aids in cleaning voter rolls, following false claims that the coalition is part of a liberal conspiracy to rig elections.  The Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, is a nonprofit formed in 2012 […]

Senate panel endorses Jeffrey Glover to run DPS

By: - March 20, 2023

Former Tempe Police Chief Jeffrey Glover on Monday did what few of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ nominees to lead state agencies have done so far: cleared a GOP-controlled Senate panel that was created this year to interrogate the governor’s appointees and has served as a roadblock for many of them.  By a vote of 5-0 on […]

Guns for sale

Proposed bill would put a ban on banning gun shows

By: - March 16, 2023

A bill that already garnered approval in the state Senate would bar Arizona municipalities from banning gun shows. One of the bill’s proponents warned the legislature could “make lives unpleasant” for municipalities that choose to do so, even if the bill never becomes law. Bob Templeton, owner of the Crossroads of the West Gun Shows, […]

Advocacy groups call on Toma to stop ‘bullying’ of GOP critics at the Capitol

By: - March 16, 2023

A group of advocacy organizations that say they want more respect for their members who speak in front of Arizona legislative committees have asked Republican House Speaker Ben Toma to “address the bullying, angry, and intimidating behavior” of some legislators during committee meetings.  The letter from two dozen left-leaning and progressive organizations was sent March […]

Hobbs, Fontes, Maricopa County clap back at Lake’s appeal to the AZ Supreme Court

By: - March 14, 2023

Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and her lawyers “continue to malign and erode the foundations upon which our great state stands” through their court case contesting the November 2022 election results, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the Arizona Supreme Court this week in a filing asking the court to reject Lake’s legal challenge […]

Sweeping bill to address Arizona’s housing crisis shot down

By: - March 14, 2023

In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, the Arizona state Senate voted down a bill aimed at addressing the housing crisis by a vote of 9-20.  Senate Bill 1117 would have slashed city control over housing projects, nixing certain zoning requirements and speeding up building by getting rid of a lengthy review and approval processes.  […]

Wadsack throws barbs at Arizona State Bar, refused to offer any proof

By: - March 10, 2023

Republican state Sen. Justine Wadsack has proposed a law based on claims that the State Bar told lawyers they would be disbarred if they took COVID-19 related court cases. But Wadsack wants you to take her word for it, as she refused to provide any evidence of those claims to lawmakers or to the Arizona […]

House Elections Committee: Don’t say ‘conspiracy theory’

By: - March 10, 2023

The leader of the Arizona House of Representatives House Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee doesn’t want speakers in front of the committee to utter the words “conspiracy theory.”  This comes just two weeks after a hearing in which that same House committee met jointly with its Senate counterpart and allowed a Gilbert insurance agent to […]