The bill's summary page on the lege's website is here: http://www.azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=HB2338&Session_ID=110 An analysis of the bill by legislative staff is here: http://www.azleg.gov//FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/51leg/1r/summary/h.hb2338_01-16-13_aw.doc.htm&Session_ID=110 Currently: The bill is agendized for tomorrow's meeting of House Agriculture and Water.

Great work, Dave!

As far as best practices and model states go, I don't know. It will take a while to find the info, and what I expect to find is that each state lege has its own quirks and that the people there have learned to work within the system, and to "work the system", that they have there. I think that we'll find that the AZ lege isn't any worse than most others, in this one regard, anyway. :) Based on what I know about the process in AZ, the only major change that I would suggest is adding limitations on the number and timing of "strike-everything" amendments, both in quantity allowed for each member, and timing of introduction (say...no more than 5, and none after March 15th.) Even then, I'd put in a circuit-breaker of sorts, allowing late introduction of a striker in a true emergency upon a 3/4 vote of the originating chamber of the lege. I'll see what I can find out about the bill introduction process in other states, particularly in the Mountain West area, just for comparison's sake, but I don't expect there to be major differences. Cosmetic differences, of course; substantive differences, not so much.

Just to be clear, and fair to Kavanagh, the very first bill of the session, HB2001, was proposed by Carl Seel and would bar the state from establishing or administering a state-based health care exchange. Not really better than Kavanaghs measure...

Incompetence on the scale seen here probably isn't incompetence.

If what I'm about to ask sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, I freely admit that I ask this question out of total ignorance of the law - Has RICO or any of its state-level variants ever been applied to political committees? Just curious...

As near as I can tell from some quick research, while I cannot tell if single-member districts were ever considered, I'm pretty sure that they might have been used. Yes, I'm equivocating, a lot. However, it looks as if there have been a few models used to populate the lege - one based on counties only (early in AZ history), single member districts (1930s) and the current multi-member district model (1970s). However, that is based on limited research here - http://www.azlibrary.gov/officials/SearchLeg.aspx and http://www.azlibrary.gov/constitution/timeline.aspx. And none of the research said "why" changes were made at the time. If you are really interested in finding out definitively, contact the AZ State Library or the Capitol Museum. They might be able to help you. Or you can call Howie Fischer; he probably has what you need in one of his notebooks. :)

Without knowing your address, I don't know specifically, but if you go to the Maricopa County Recorder's "District Locator" (https://recorder.maricopa.gov/pollingplace/getdistrict.aspx) page and enter your address, that should tell you. And since we get all get our ballots from our county's recorders, they *should* get it right. However, having said all that, my guess is that the SOS is out of date. Most of the current LD17 was drawn into the new LD26. If you are registered to vote in Tempe north of Baseline, you are probably in the new 26.

I've been following AZ politics for too long - when I saw "brb - be right back" in the illustration, my first thought was "brb stands for 'budget reconciliation bill" ". Here in AZ, BRBs are used to pass changes to law needed to make a budget work because the legislature is barred by the AZ Constitution from slipping changes to law in an actual general appropriations (aka - budget) bill. They also use BRBs to try to slip through measures that failed, or failed to move, earlier in the legislative session.

You may have pulled the "87%" figure out of your head, but it sounds like they pulled the "96%" figure out of a different part of their anatomy.

I don't seeing it as affecting it significantly. By that, I mean to say that I expect that the Republicans will still be in the majority in both chambers, though they probably won't have a super-majority (2/3) in each chamber. Individually, Andy Tobin is a shoo-in for reelection to the House, if he runs. There are still rumors that he may go for the CD4 Congressional seat. If he does go that route, John Kavanagh will be a contender for the speakership (Kavanagh's running in a safe R district). You've probably already heard that Terri Proud isn't running for reelection, which may help to reduce the crazy factor, but if another R takes her place, the crazy won't be reduced by much. In the Senate, Al Melvin is in trouble, but I don't know how bad his problems are, him being from southern AZ and me being a Maricopan. You probably know his status better than I do. Don Shooter from Yuma is moving from his district to a safe R district where there is already an R incumbent in the Senate, meaning one of them won't be back. Same thing with Rich Crandall in East Mesa, who's decided to avoid Russell Pearce's bid for a return to the Senate by moving to a district with another sitting Senator. Either Crandall or John Fillmore won't be back. However, that isn't a net loss for the Rs, as either Russell Pearce or Bob Worsley will win the seat in the district where Crandall currently resides. There will be a significant change in the names at the Capitol, but I don't expect the tone to become more moderate, unless the Ds can narrow the R advantage in each chamber to > 6. That might force the Rs to engage in actually "whip" activities (lining up votes, making sure members are in attendance, etc.) One of the wild cards in this will be Jan Brewer's pending "lame duck" status. She's termed out in 2014, and the members of the R caucus will become less concerned with working with the current goveror and more concerned with lining up with person they expect will become governor. It will be easier to get a feel for this once the ballots are set at the end of May. While time is getting short, there is still time for last-minute candidates to enter races and mount effective campaigns.

FYI - a proposal along these lines has already been filed for the next session of the lege - http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/50leg/2r/bills/hcr2006p.pdf

Thanks Dave. I tried finding info about Kiley last night as I was writing the original post, but couldn't because the name is so common and I had no way to narrow down the geography of the search. I was pretty sure he wasn't the late actor, however, that was all I was pretty sure of. :)

Actually, *this* is something that is within his purview. It's one of the perks/powers of the Senate President. However, the whole "blacklist" thing, the barring of specific people from the Senate building because of their criticism of Pearce, is *not* something that is within his purview. And it's something that is far more worrisome.

Hessick spoke to the accepted meaning of jurisdiction ("subject to the jurisdiction of" means "subject to the power of", meaning laws can be enforced) and that in the US today, only diplomats fall outside of that category. He also brought up some factual errors that Eastman made (like who wrote what and so on). There was also a lot of discussion of various cases and rulings that I got lost in (sorry!) Kessick didn't speak as long as Eastman, who spoke for nearly 90 minutes. Kessick had the podium for more than 15 minutes, while the other speakers were limited to 3 minutes. The video has been posted if you are into that sort of thing (and you are :) ). http://azleg.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=13

Now, "oh, I forgot about that little ol' thing" becomes an acceptable defense. As I understand the law (and some of the other writers here can correct me if I'm incorrect), "truthfully" means something that the speaker believes to be true; "accurately" is something that *is* true.

The short answer, and it's addressed in an update to the post, is "I'm not sure." Wish I had a better answer, but we won't know for certain until Friday's meeting.

Thanks, Steve!

Katsmail2008's comment has been confirmed and the post has been updated. Thanks Kat!

Thanks for letting me know. Ill double check with Rep. Ableser and postthe correction upon confirmation. Have a good day...

"Bad science fiction writing does not a theory of economics make" And a theory of economics does not a political system make. It didn't work with Marxism, and it isn't working with the Randian corporatopia being pushed by the Rs. Politics is about people, and people aren't completely selfless (which would be necessary for Marxism to work as the basis for a political system) nor are they completely selfish (Randism's failure).

Well, I'm not sure if this post has a new poll posted; if it does, I'm not seeing it (using IE 8.0). Also, the original test poll worked just fine and wouldn't let me vote again. However, today it is tiny and unreadable to me (again, IE 8.0). Later...

Actually, it was DeLeon who answered no to question number 2. While there were two Independent candidates who similarly answered "no" on the same question, DeLeon got my attention because of the other rule-bending around his candidacy. As with DeLeon, that particular answer may not be an automatic disqualifier, but it certainly should be examined during the interview process with the I candidates.