The camera never blinks. The mic is always on. Those are words to live by if you're in the TV news business. Yet one afternoon in July, Fox 10 diva Kari Lake apparently forgot those broadcast axioms. Before they were set to appear in a Facebook Live video, Lake and her co-anchor, John Hook, were discussing the station management's directive for her to delete a reference to the extremist social media site Parler, not realizing that the recording equipment was doing its thing. Hook suggested that their bosses were worried that Lake would get written up by New Times again. "Fuck them," Lake responded. "They're 20-year-old dopes. That's a rag for selling marijuana ads." Well, yes, all five of our news reporters are 20-somethings, but four of them have master's degrees from Columbia University and the fifth's investigative reporting already has taken down the state director of parks, Sue Black, and former legislator David Stringer. And yes, we do sell marijuana ads, thank you very much for reminding everyone, because medical pot is quite legal and profitable in this state. But despite speaking the truth, Lake was off the air for a week, though management never said why. Perhaps she just needed to chill with a bud or two. We would have been happy to recommend a dispensary.

Rodney Glassman made the mistake last year of running for one of two empty seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission. Since the commission is a powerful, albeit lesser-known, fourth body of state government, candidates receive a fair amount of scrutiny, and someone brilliantly unearthed an old video from 2010 featuring Glassman. The "Sweet Home Arizona" video is campaign material from when Glassman ran against John McCain for senator — as a Democrat. Glassman, who is tall and tends to man-spread when he sits, is the lead singer in the video. Backed by a sorry-looking band, he belts into a microphone and awkwardly thrashes his upper body. "Sweet Home Arizona" criticizes big oil and asks about bringing solar to the state (seriously, who wrote those lyrics?), while Glassman's voice is about as pleasing as nails on a chalkboard. Glassman did not win a seat on the Corporation Commission, but it is unlikely that the video had much of an impact on that loss.

Thanks to the corrosive influence of big-pocket donors and the prevalence of backroom deals, it's easy to feel jaded by politics. Especially in Arizona. That's what made Republican state Senator Paul Boyer's unapologetic stand during the final stretch of the 2019 legislative session so remarkable. Glendale's Boyer pushed a bill that extends the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse to sue their assailants. His Republican colleagues and the insurance industry blocked the legislation. So, Boyer said he'd refuse to give a pivotal vote for the party's budget unless the Legislature passed his bill. Republican Heather Carter of Cave Creek joined Boyer in his stand. House Speaker Rusty Bowers tried to get Boyer to back down with a watered-down version of the bill. Boyer refused. Two of his GOP colleagues, Ben Toma and Kelly Townsend, were caught on hot mics musing about retaliating against Boyer for bucking the party line. He still did not stand down. Boyer's leap of faith eventually worked. The House passed the bill and Governor Doug Ducey signed it, a victory for child sex-abuse victims — and for political courage.

In an age when soundbites are currency, no matter how dishonest, state Representative Kirsten Engel of Tucson eschews the default grandstanding mode of legislating in Arizona in favor of a law-school-professor-does-her-damn-homework style of soundbite that puts most of her peers to shame. In her role on the House Judiciary Committee, Engel was a tireless advocate for criminal justice reform, despite an unsavory alliance between Chair John Allen and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery that kept common-sense bills from getting heard. As a member of the Environment Committee, Engel's expertise in environmental law helped her ask some of the most incisive questions on Arizona's most critical issue: water. Even when more trivial-seeming matters were at stake — such as state Representative David Cook's bill prohibiting nonmilk products from being labeled milk — Engel's wit delivered a breath of fresh air. "Have you ever heard of coconut milk?" she asked Cook. "It could be coconut beverage,'' Cook said. "Peanut butter? Butter comes from cows," Engel responded. "That would seem to violate this law."

Phoenix police shot a record 44 people in 2018, surpassing the rate of police shootings in larger cities. As that number grew through the year, activists from Poder in Action became a mainstay at City Council meetings, where their protest tactics earned them the title of "anarchists" from City Council member Sal DiCiccio and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association. But the group was tapping into an issue that would soon blow up. By the time the video of officers brutally detaining the Ames family put Phoenix in the national spotlight earlier this year, Poder had the manpower and background to organize an informed response.

It was a big year for higher education news in this state. Thankfully, Arizona Republic readers could count on reporter Rachel Leingang to tell them what they needed to know. Three students were prosecuted after they protested an appearance by Border Patrol agents at the University of Arizona, igniting a free speech firestorm that may or may not have led to their charges getting dropped. An Arizona State University economics professor accused the school of engaging in a shady deal with an online textbook company that forced him to fail some students. Mired with accreditation issues, Argosy University failed to pay millions of dollars in financial aid, screwing over countless students before shutting down in March. Leingang broke major developments on all these stories and more, hardly ever missing a beat.

The Arizona Department of Transportation is probably the only state agency whose tweets are liked and retweeted by people who actually mean it. It is almost certainly the only agency that can lay claim to having even one tweet go viral. Its messages are pithy, clever, and sometimes even saucy — nearly as good as the traffic messages and warnings they display along the highway. Remember the guy in September 2018 who was caught on video playing the saxophone along the side of Loop 101? Thank ADOT's killer team of public information officers for bringing you that news, and remember, you saw it first on its Twitter feed. When ADOT isn't showing Arizona a roadside music performance (with a gentle admonishment to viewers not to try this at home), the agency is bringing you useful, if more routine, information about crashes, closures, and weather, sprinkled with "Where in Arizona?" photo challenges and lifesaving reminders about not to text — or tweet — and drive.

Given the long-running contentiousness between the Central Arizona Project and the Arizona Department of Water Resources, plus the historic fight-inducing nature of water in the West, it's a wonder that Arizona's drought plan for the Colorado River materialized at all last fall and fell into place in early 2019, just in time for a federal deadline. But miraculously, Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke and Central Arizona Project General Manager Ted Cooke pulled it off. Not only did they avoid coming to blows, they even sat side by side with matching poker faces through endless public meetings and press conferences. And we can only guess how many more times they met behind the scenes, until most of the parties who lay claim to Arizona's supply of Colorado River water agreed on how to distribute expected cutbacks to that precious resource. Even when negotiations seemed on the verge of collapse, this alliterative duo stayed the course. We hope they're catching up on rest now, because the next round of Colorado River negotiations starts in 2020.

Sandy Bahr might as well be Superwoman, given the sheer scope of environment-affecting activity she tracks throughout Arizona. Often, she is the lone voice in the room advocating for environmental protection, no matter how seemingly niche or wonky the issue (it always seems niche, until your water is too dirty to drink). Find her testifying in a House committee hearing on a bill governing water in Harquahala Valley, or catch her at a meeting hosted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality on the state's efforts to take over a federal program regulating clean waterways. Such stalwart persistence and tirelessness in the face of powerful interests that would rather plunder the earth than protect it merit far more than a Best of Phoenix award. One day, your grandkids will thank Bahr for her work.

Can you believe Arizona was the only one of 33 states that required no testing at all of its legal cannabis products? Of course you can. Yet surprisingly, the Arizona Legislature fixed that situation this year. Why is that surprising? Because Arizona's actually a weed-hating state, and the Republican majority in the Legislature have been loath to do anything kind for the cannabis community. Their change of heart can't be fully explained by savvy politicking. With recreational marijuana now legal in 11 states and Washington, D.C., and medical marijuana in 33 states, even hard-nosed local GOP members know pot will be in their future, like it or not. So, they finally gave in to common sense and created SB 1494, a bill that sets up a new testing system intended to protect patients. After the law goes live in November 2020, independent labs overseen by the state will test dispensary weed for potency and contaminants like mold. But it gets better: The new law makes medical marijuana cards good for two years instead of one — so, half off the normal price of $150 per year. And you thought all pot laws were bad.