Representative David Lujan made it official today and announced that he would be running for attorney general in 2010. Lujan has had an exploratory committee going for close to a year so this is far from a shocker. But another candidate for AG, former Assistant Attorney General Felecia Rotellini, who…
Arizona Congressman John Shadegg is throwing in the towel; he announced today that he will not seek re-election in 2010.Score one for sanity in government.Shadegg, who’s antics during his tenure in the Congress have bordered on lunacy, is now one of 13 Republicans in the House of Representatives who will not…
One little tidbit we forgot to mention in our earlier post about Treasurer Dean Martin’s announcement that he was running for governor is who would replace him as the Republican candidate for state treasurer.The likely suspect — for now, anyways — is Senator Jim Waring.Waring is term-limited in the Senate and…
As we predicted yesterday, Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin officially declared his candidacy for governor this morning at a closed electronics plant in Phoenix. Martin, who is in his first-term as treasurer and is a former state senator from Phoenix, will challenge sitting Governor Jan Brewer for the Republican nomination. Other notable Republicans possibly seeking…
Speculation that Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin would be throwing his hat in the ring for a shot at the state’s top spot has been in the air for months but tomorrow may be the day he makes his run for governor official.We got an email today from Tim Gaffney, communications…
We predicted nearly a year ago that — thanks to a lawsuit from those principled conservatives over at the Goldwater Institute — matching funds could be history for this year’s state elections.But either Governor Jan Brewer didn’t read the story, or she doesn’t buy our legal analysis. According to a…
Political rookie and Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker criticized Governor Jan Brewer’s State of the State address live yesterday, 140 characters at a time — and he did it 34 times in about 38 minutes. Frankly, we don’t know how he found time to listen to the speech and tweet so…
Mark Weaver, the top campaign strategist for Senator John McCain, believed rumors that McCain’s wife Cindy was having an affair with a Tempe man, according to a new book hitting stores this week.Game Change, the new behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential campaign by veteran reporters Mark Halperin and John…
In a move that seems taken from the pages of Barack Obama’s social-media political playbook, Paradise Valley Mayor and political rookie Vernon Parker will be tweeting live criticism from Governor Brewer’s State of the State address next week.Considering Parker is looking to oust Jan as the GOP’s candidate for governor,…
Joe Villasenor, a senior assistant to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, will be placed on “indefinite, unpaid leave” as of this evening, according to his supervisor.Villasenor was arrested December 15 after his wife told Phoenix Police officers that he’d grabbed her arm and shoved her hard enough to send her face-first…
A conservative think-tank is demanding that the city of Phoenix release two years’ worth of “activity logs” for Mayor Phil Gordon’s security detail — a set of records the city has previously refused to turn over.Judicial Watch, based in Washington, D.C., quietly sent a letter to the city on December…
The Arizona Republican Party is reported to have received $50,000 from the National Republican Committee to help build a grassroots effort to strengthen the party. However, the latest spending reports show no record of the transaction, as required by law, the Arizona Guardian reports today. That, evidently, is A-ok with Arizona…
Governor Jan Brewer is having a little trouble convincing people to pony up the cash she needs to qualify for public money to fund her 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Brewer is running under the state’s clean election system, which means she will be given public money to fund her campaign, but…
Department of Justice data is in, and federal prosecutions reached a record high in fiscal year 2009, and Arizona deserves much of the, uh, credit. In 2009, there were 169,612 federal prosecutions — more than half of them cases against illegal immigrants, according to new report from Syracuse University. Check out the…
The lawyer for indicted Maricopa County Supervior Mary Rose Wilcox wants a guarantee that County Attorney Andrew Thomas won’t accuse the Pima judge assigned to the case of conspiring against him. In a motion filed today, attorney Colin Campbell asks the Superior Court to force Thomas to state publicly he won’t…
The Arizona Republic editorialized this morning that county leadership is out of control, and says in its closing argument that “a higher, saner power must step in.”Obviously, they’re talking about the feds — not this wimpy guy: Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat, is evidently powerless against his Republican…
There was speculation that Republican AZ Senator Jim Waring would consider a run for state treasurer, and this week he made it official.Yesterday, term-limited Waring planned to set up an exploratory committee to begin raising money to become Arizona’s top banker, and will close up shop on a committee he started to…
The latest news in the reshuffling of the usual suspects in state government is that Senator Jim Waring is considering a run for treasurer, assuming Treasurer Dean Martin doesn’t want to keep his job.Waring’s termed-out in the Senate, where legislators are only allowed four consecutive terms in each house, and…
The Mexican government is keeping immigrants safer than it used to on its side of the border, a top official says. Cecilia Romero Castillo, commissioner of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, told the Los Angeles Times recently that “new controls” begun by the government have reduced the number of extortion attempts…
The Democratic Party is mixing things up a bit. At a press conference this afternoon, state Senator Meg Burton-Cahill announced she was retiring from the Senate, Representative David Schapira announced he will begin “exploring” a run for her Senate seat, and, straight out of left field, Tempe City Councilman Ben Arredondo,…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s criminal investigation into potential misdeeds by county leaders includes Governor Jan Brewer, a source close to the investigation tells New Times.The source, who did not want to want to be identified, did not want to elaborate on the subject of the inquiry, saying only that…
Here’s one from the rumor mill: Russell Pearce (above), the state senator from Mesa who’s led the charge against illegal immigration in Arizona, could be appointed head of the state Department of Public Safety. The Phoenix Business Journal and KTAR (92.3 FM) quote anonymous insiders at the state Capitol who…
