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Civil rights group objects to using federal COVID aid for prisons
The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Treasury Department to take a harder line on states and local governments using federal American Rescue Plan Act money to build and expand correctional facilities. One of the projects it cited is in Arizona, where prison officials said they planned to spend $4.2 million to renovate executive […]
Kavanagh wants AG to defend all laws, after Brnovich wouldn’t defend his
After the attorney general last year refused to defend a new law making it a crime to take video of police officers in some situations, the law’s author is back with a proposal that would require the state’s top attorney to defend every law. State Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said it was frustrating that […]
Arizona’s new political reality: A split government
For nearly 14 years, Republicans have controlled the most important levers of power at the state Capitol, allowing them to increasingly become more insular in their governance and oftentimes cut Democrats out of the process entirely. That ends on Monday, when the GOP-majority 56th Legislature convenes and its 90 members take their oath of office. […]
Katie Hobbs, Democrats take the reins of Arizona government
Katie Hobbs officially became Arizona’s governor on Monday, ushering in a new set of priorities and vision for the state and setting the stage for contentious battles with the GOP-controlled legislature. Hobbs and four other victors in November’s statewide elections were sworn into office in a private ceremony Monday. Hobbs, who succeeded Doug Ducey as […]
Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban doesn’t overrule 50 years of more recent regulations
Abortions in Arizona are legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, after an appeals court ruled late Friday that the state’s Civil War-era abortion ban doesn’t overrule nearly 50 years of laws tightly regulating abortions and instead only applies to non-physicians who might try to provide abortions. In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge appellate panel […]
When you tell voters to ‘get the hell out,’ prepare to lose embarrassingly
Kari Lake performed historically badly in her bid to be governor. And there’s no debate about why she and her merry band of MAGA extremists lost all of the top statewide races this year: Republican voters abandoned them. Not that they could ever admit that, of course, as Lake and her allies have spent the […]
Yes, that really is Kyrsten Sinema selling designer clothes and bike gear on Facebook
Slate on Thursday published a story speculating that U.S. Sen Kyrsten Sinema is padding her income and decluttering her D.C. apartment by reselling designer clothing and athletic gear on Facebook Marketplace. The story stopped short of definitively saying that the senator, who is one of the two most pivotal votes in the entire U.S. Senate, […]
Kari Lake seeks to overturn her election loss citing ‘intentional misconduct,’ but provides no evidence
Kari Lake is demanding that the courts overturn Katie Hobbs’ victory in last month’s midterm and instead declare the former television news anchor governor-elect or, barring that, entirely throw out the 2022 election and re-do it. In a sprawling lawsuit that claims the election in Maricopa County was irredeemably flawed by “intentional misconduct,” including the […]
As an independent, Kyrsten Sinema can play spoiler to Democrats. That’s assuming she runs at all.
Kyrsten Sinema made official today what has been obvious for a long time: She’s not a Democrat. The announcement is certainly not shocking — she ran in 2018 on her independent streak and has legislated that way — but it will have huge electoral ramifications if she chooses to run for reelection in 2024. Most […]
Former friends and foes unsurprised by Sinema’s defection from Democratic Party
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Friday morning that she was leaving the Democratic Party, a move that was not surprising to political observers and longtime former allies and foes of the senior senator who are now looking ahead to 2024. “Clearly, it gets her out of the worst place she could possibly be, which is […]
Kyrsten Sinema has left the Democratic Party, registered as an independent
Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona’s senior U.S. senator, has left the Democratic Party and re-registered as an independent. “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she told Politico, which broke the news Friday morning. The first-term senator wrote in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic that she does not intend to change the way she legislates […]
Hand-count audits find no problems with Arizona ballot tabulators
Hand-count audits of the November election results in 12 Arizona counties found no problems with electronic ballot tabulators, but three counties didn’t conduct the post-election audits required by law. State law calls for counties to perform a partial hand count of ballots after each election. Representatives of each recognized political party in the county randomly […]