Articles Tagged "legislature"
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Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:27:35 -0700
Filling vacancies at the Legislature became almost routine this year as lawmakers bolted to run for Congress. But the latest vacancy is a reluctant one, created by Rep. Doug Quelland's violations of campaign-finance laws. Quelland continues to dispute those offenses, both in court and to anyone who asks him about it. No matter. Following the laws that govern Arizona's public-campaign-finance system, elections officials declared his District 10 seat vacant. On Monday night, the precinct committeemen in the northwest Valley district chose three Republicans as a potential replacements for Quelland. They are Kimberly Yee, who is running for the House seat this fall; Harry GrosJean and Francine ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:58:07 -0700
There's a fundraiser tonight that looks to boost the fortunes of what might be considered the "moderate middle" in the next Legislature. Greater Phoenix Leadership is throwing a no-host fundraiser at the Arizona Biltmore to enrich the coffers of 12 legislative candidates in races "whose outcomes could make or break the business environment next year," according to the GPL invite. Those pivotal candidates, in GPL's view, are a mix of Republicans and Democrats, incumbents and newcomers. Business boosters attending the fundraiser are being asked to contribute a minimum $2,500, with the money split between the candidates. The candidates are Republican state Senate ...read the rest of this post
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Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:59:58 -0700
An error in the forms used to file his nominating petitions could prove to be troublesome for state Sen. Ken Cheuvront, who is termed out at the Legislature and is running for justice of the peace. According to Yvonne Reed, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, Cheuvront correctly filed paperwork to run in the primary for the Encanto JP job. But the paperwork he used to gather his nominating petitions was for the general election, to be held in November. The snafu could make his candidacy subject to challenge, Reed said, although to date no challenge has been filed. Cheuvront copped ...read the rest of this post
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Fri, 21 May 2010 17:56:46 -0700
Proposition 100 put the state's elected Democrats into a tough position politically. On one hand, many of them thought it was a bad way to raise revenue. A win would strengthen their chief nemesis, Gov. Jan Brewer. On the other hand, it was their only realistic chance to stave off deep cuts to education and social services, which has been a top priority for them at the Legislature for the past two years. Many Democrats eventually decided to hold their noses and vote yes. But given that 64 percent of voters wound up approving of the measure, should they have embraced it more ...read the rest of this post
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Mon, 17 May 2010 14:17:46 -0700
At a rally to urge support for her long-sought sales-tax increase, Gov. Jan Brewer again said she won't call the Legislature back into special session to consider tax cuts. "I am not looking forward to calling the Legislature to address the 'jobs bill,' " the governor said. But while ruling out broad-based tax cuts, she said she remains interested in tax incentives to spur economic recovery. Those incentives would be structured to pay for themselves -- in other words, the tax break would happen only after a certain number of jobs or revenue is created. When lawmakers might convene to consider incentives, ...read the rest of this post
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Thu, 13 May 2010 16:01:11 -0700
Arizona may be unable to pay its bills next year depending on the outcome of a ballot measure, Treasurer Dean Martin said Thursday at a news conference. "Unless the Legislature takes some sort of emergency action, we will be issuing IOUs somewhere down the road," Martin said on the first floor of the executive tower. Martin billed the press conference as a check-up on the state's financial health, which is grim. As of Wednesday, the state had issued $86.5 billion in treasurer's warrant notes, which permit short-term borrowing to cover operational expenses when the general fund falls below zero. The notes have ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 11 May 2010 07:33:39 -0700
The Sierra Club finally wins one at the Legislature. The environmental group usually measures legislative success by how quickly the session ends, lest lawmakers do more damage to their pet causes of clean air, clean water, forests and wildlife. And it got that, sort of, when the Legislature wrapped up work after 109 days, one of the shortest sessions in the last 15 years. But the club really cashed in when its lobbyist, Sandy Bahr, won the sine-die pool. That's the pool in which staffers, lobbyists and hangers-on chip in a buck for each guess ...read the rest of this post
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Mon, 10 May 2010 15:59:38 -0700
The attorney for Rep. Doug Quelland, R-Phoenix, on Monday said the Citizens Clean Elections Commission "arbitrarily and capriciously" ignored critical facts in the lawmaker's campaign-finance case. That disregard means Maricopa Superior Court Judge Crane McClennan should send Quelland's case back to an administrative-law judge so those facts can be considered, attorney Tim Casey argued. But attorney Jose Jesus de Rivera, representing the commission, said the facts have been well-established in Quelland's long-running case. The judge should uphold the decisions made to date that Quelland must forfeit his seat in the Legislature for violating the state's public-finance and campaign-reporting laws, de Rivera said. "This ...read the rest of this post
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Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:45:46 -0700
The Legislature has sent to the November ballot a measure that would rename the office of Secretary of State as lieutenant governor. But it's more than a name change. SCR1013 would allow voters in their party primaries to select their nominees for governor and lieutenant governor. The winning nominees then would be required to run as a ticket in the general election. This is the first of a package of so-called government reform bills to make it to the ballot. Still pending are measures that would seek a repeal of the state's public campaign-finance law and one that would require an earlier deadline ...read the rest of this post
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Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:41:25 -0700
The Hawaii Legislature has passed a bill that would allow the state to ignore repeated requests for documents under the public-records law. The bill is a response to the "birther" movement, which has pressed to see the original copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate in its quest to verify whether he is a U.S. citizen. Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4,1961, according to Hawaii records, but the birther movement doubts that and wants to see the original copy of his birth certificate. The bill is on the desk of Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican. It is not clear ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:25:23 -0700
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has made quite a name for himself, threatening to sue to block implementation of Arizona's new immigration law. He couldn't find enough support on the City Council to mount a challenge, but says he may consider suing as mayor on behalf of the city. But if the bill, which Gordon describes as unconstitutional, is so heinous, where was hizzoner when it was being debated at the Legislature? The House and Senate buildings are just a mile down the street from City Hall, but neither Gordon nor his police chief made the trek to talk about the flaws in ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:27:13 -0700
Sen. Ron Gould stood up on the Senate floor and, noting it was the 100th day of the session, made a motion that the Legislature adjourn sine die. His motion was met with laughter, and then a parliamentary decision that his motion was out of order because it needed concurrence from the House. The call for sine die, which signals the end of the legislative session, is becoming an annual ritual for Gould, a three-term Republican from Lake Havasu City. "By the 100th day, I'm getting antsy," Gould said. "I figure we've done enough damage to the republic by then." Legislative rules call for ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:32:44 -0700
At a morning news conference, a group representing clergy and business denounced Senate Bill 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce's wide-ranging illegal immigration bill and tiptoed up to the edge of calling the Mesa senator a modern-day Hitler. Among other things, the bill would require local law enforcement to determine a person's immigration status if the officer has "reasonable suspicion" to think the individual is in the country illegally. It also attempts to prevent day laborers, by making it a misdemeanor both to solicit work from a roadway and to hire someone who is doing so and creates a misdemeanor offense if someone transports, or attempts to transport, an ...read the rest of this post
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Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:14:32 -0700
Over the weekend, Sen. Ron Gould compared this portion of the legislative session to Whack-a-Mole. "All the bad bills keep popping up," the Lake Havasu City Republican said, referring to the Legislature's use of strike-everything amendments. As he said it, officials at the Arizona State Parks Board were working to whack one of his moles: House Bill 2464, a Gould-sponsored striker that would force the board to lease a portion of Lake Havasu State Park to Lake Havasu City for the next 25 years. The bill is awaiting a vote by the full Senate. It's not a new idea: Lake Havasu City ...read the rest of this post
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Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:25:56 -0700
It's strike three at the state Legislature for the high-interest loan industry. The Senate Finance Committee was set to hear a proposed amendment to House Bill 2035 that would have restricted payday-loan centers to the state's 36 percent cap on interest rates but raised the loan origination fee cap 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent. It also would have allowed lenders to charge $10 for preparing loan documents. The bill was pulled from the agenda due to a lack of support on the committee, according to amendment sponsor and committee chairman Jack Harper, R-Surprise. The state's 10-year exemption to the interest rate cap expires ...read the rest of this post
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Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:44:14 -0700
The House has a delivery for you to pick up, courtesy of Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix. After last week's lengthy and passionate debate on suing the feds over the healthcare-reform law (think microcosm of the Washington, D.C. debate), Sinema proposed sending a letter to Congress attesting that the Arizona Legislature agrees with at least parts of the sweeping federal law. She ticked off five areas of bipartisan agreement, such as preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines. “It's a good thing that this country will stop the practice of discriminating ...read the rest of this post
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Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:44:35 -0700
The Arizona Legislature will convene its eighth special session Monday to give Gov. Jan Brewer the authority to sue the federal government over the health-care bill. Brewer issued the call Friday afternoon and followed it with her call to arms. "Arizonans are increasingly concerned and alarmed about the rpaid and dramatic expansion of the federal government into their personal lives," Brewer said in a statement. "This massive new federal mandate is a threat to our individual freedoms, and state soverignty as well as a devastating new cost to our state budget." Brewer and many legislative Republicans have complained about the cost the new ...read the rest of this post
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Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:18:48 -0700
The fiscal 2011 state budget is pretty much a done deal. Still, local religious leaders have banded together to denounce recent budget cuts and asked Gov. Jan Brewer and the Legislature to try again. The leaders put out a statement Tuesday, saying that the “poorest and the most vulnerable” will suffer from the cuts. “As people of Christian faith we cannot accept these cuts,” the statement read. “Throughout the history of our faith, the prophets have warned us that an economic system that shows indifference to the needs of the poor is contrary to God's will and leads to ruin for society.” Last week, ...read the rest of this post
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Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:20:44 -0700
Democrats argued for more than an hour against provisions of House Bill 2010, which makes cuts to health-care programs. A debate over whether the state would lose out on $420 million in potential federal Medicaid dollars ran for more than an hour. The bill would effectively cut 310,000 adults from the state's Medicaid alternative, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, by limiting the funding for the program to "available funding." The issue is one of timing. Congress is debating an extension of Medicaid dollars to the states, and action may conclude this week. Democrats argued that if the Legislature passes HB2010, and Gov. Jan Brewer signs it ...read the rest of this post
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Friday, Feb 26, 10 at 08:00 AM
PRESS RELEASE -- Campbell applauds GOP withdrawal of anti-solar bill from legislature
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