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Ducey: Schools won’t get COVID aid money if they require masks
A day after a judge ruled that a new state law barring Arizona public and charter schools from requiring mask use can’t be enforced until late September, Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday said school districts considering enacting temporary mask mandates won’t receive some federal COVID-19 relief money unless they call off those plans. And those […]
Sen. Tony Navarrete accused of molesting teen boy over several years
State. Sen. Otoniel “Tony” Navarrete is facing seven felonies for child sex crimes after allegedly molesting and forcing oral sex on a boy who was 12 or 13 years old at the time and his younger brother. In a secretly recorded phone call detailed in the probable cause statement that led to his arrest, Navarrete, […]
Karen Fann might be the only one who doesn’t realize the ‘audit’ is all about Donald Trump
More than anything else, the disclosure last week of who has paid nearly $6 million for the embarrassingly incompetent so-called “audit” of the Maricopa County election blows to smithereens the insistence from Senate President Karen Fann that the audit isn’t about Donald Trump. Not that there was still any reason to believe her protestations that […]
A new, modern and cleaner look for the Arizona Mirror
Say “hello” to the new Arizona Mirror website. The new look, which debuts today, is the result of almost a year of planning and designing aimed at modernizing the look and making it easier for you — our valued reader — to find and use the news you need. The renovations give the Mirror a […]
Judge: Senate must disclose who is funding its election review
A judge said the Arizona Senate’s reasoning for why it rejected a public records request for documents relating to the ongoing ballot review — including who is funding the effort — would lead to the “absurd result” of effectively gutting state public records law and “erode any sense of transparency” in government. Maricopa County Superior […]
Arizona Democrats launch 2022 campaign earlier than ever
The Arizona Democratic Party says it's 2022 campaign plans will outstrip the party's record 2020 volunteer effort, which saw more than 34,000 volunteers contact voters more than 1.7 million times to support Joe Biden, Mark Kelly and other Democratic candidates.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: GOP leadership is powerless, and their members know it
Late yesterday evening, Republican leaders saw their plans to speed a state budget through the legislative process fall apart. The deal with Ducey was announced last week, the bills were introduced Monday, rushed through committee Tuesday and the whole package — including a flat income tax proposal that would slash state revenues by $1.9 billion […]
Budget deal will include huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a new flat income tax
A budget deal reportedly struck by Gov. Doug Ducey and legislative Republican leaders would transform Arizona’s income tax system and provide massive cuts to the wealthy -- and also undercut a measure voters approved in 2020 that taxed the rich to increase school funding by nearly $1 billion every year.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: A victory for media access is a victory for the public
As of yesterday afternoon, local reporters were allowed into Veterans Memorial Coliseum to do their jobs covering the audit being conducted by Senate Republicans and their team of thoroughly biased, conspiracy-theory-spreading, auditors who sought to overturn the 2020 election because they disagreed with the outcome.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The Senate’s election audit clown show
Senate Republicans have so far defended Chief Auditor Doug Logan (of the oh-so-professionally named firm Cyber Ninjas) as perfectly qualified to lead the audit of all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County in November and all of the county’s Dominion Voting System tabulation machines, even though he spent the months after the election howling at […]
Arizona at low risk of gerrymandering in 2022: report
In a new analysis of possible gerrymandering ahead of the 2022 elections, Arizona is just one of seven states that were deemed at “minimal risk” of winding up with a political map with clear partisan bias.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The #StopTheSteal audit was always going to be this way
It took me less than an hour to find the multitude of tweets that the lead auditor, a Florida man named Doug Logan, had sent from a Twitter account that he deleted sometime in January.