Arizona

Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary Of State Says It's 'Possible' Obama Won't Be On Ballot

Nick R. Martin | May 18, 2012, 10:53AM

Arizona Secretary Of State Ken Bennett

The man in charge of running Arizona's elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he's not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.

Bennett's comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.

Bennett said he was following the lead of the state's eccentric Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a fellow Republican who ordered an investigation into the president's birth certificate last year and concluded the document released by the White House is a forgery. Bennett said he is now trying to get verification from state officials in Hawaii that the certificate is authentic.

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Unions

Anti-Union Bill Back From The Dead In Arizona

Nick R. Martin | February 28, 2012, 2:35PM

One bill in a series of proposed laws that would devastate public unions in Arizona has come back to life and is set to be debated later today on the floor of the state Senate.

The measure was on life support two weeks ago after Republicans said they didn't have enough votes to pass it. But it was given a second chance and could quickly get a formal Senate vote if it moves past the debate.

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Arizona

Aggressive Anti-Union Bill On Life Support In Arizona

Nick R. Martin | February 15, 2012, 2:12PM

A proposed law that would devastate public unions in Arizona appears to be stalled in the state Senate after Republicans said they failed to come up with enough votes to pass it.

The measure, which would strip collective bargaining rights from government workers throughout the state, sailed through two Senate committees earlier this month and seemed likely to become law because Republicans control two-thirds of both houses of the legislature. Unions scrambled to find a way to defeat it but none expressed much hope of success.

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Jan Brewer

Brewer Distances Herself From Arizona's Anti-Union Bills

Nick R. Martin | February 3, 2012, 2:19PM

Gov. Jan Brewer distanced herself on Friday from a series of Republican proposals in the Arizona Senate that could devastate organized labor in her state, saying she was never consulted on them and has other priorities.

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Jan Brewer

Brewer Pledged Cash For Immigration Fight, Instead Spent It Buying Copies Of Her Own Book

Nick R. Martin | February 2, 2012, 11:47AM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) signing copies of her book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," in Irvine, CA in November 2011.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) launched a special fundraising political action committee in October, pledging to use the money to fight illegal immigration and take on other issues she believes in. But based on financial disclosures filed this week, she has so far used it to do little more than buy copies of her own book.

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Arizona

Tougher Than Wisconsin: Arizona Republicans Launch 'All Out Assault' On Public Unions

Nick R. Martin | January 31, 2012, 5:13PM

The Arizona State House of Representatives in Phoenix, AZ

With a sweeping series of bills introduced Monday night in the state Senate, Republicans in Arizona hoped to make Wisconsin's battle against public unions last year look like a lightweight sparring match.

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Jan Brewer

Brewer Has History Of Getting Facts Wrong

Nick R. Martin | January 30, 2012, 5:40AM

Back in 2010 as she defended her state's harsh immigration law, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) told a newspaper reporter that she was deeply hurt by the terrible names people were calling her. The worst, she said, were the comparisons to the Nazis.

"They are awful," she said. "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that...and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced."

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Jan Brewer

2nd Mayor Says Obama 'Wasn't Tense At All' During Brewer Encounter

Nick R. Martin | January 27, 2012, 11:32AM

Out of the three officials who met President Obama on an airport tarmac near Phoenix earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is now the only one who has characterized the president as anything other than cordial.

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Jan Brewer

Mayor Seems To Contradict Gov. Brewer's Story On Obama Run-In

Nick R. Martin | January 26, 2012, 5:23PM

President Obama didn't exactly walk away from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) during their disagreement on Wednesday on an airport tarmac near Phoenix, said one of the only people to witness the exchange up close. The president simply began talking to the other two elected officials who were there to greet him.

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Jan Brewer

Obama's Tarmac Tiff Was With Foe Partly Of His Own Making

Nick R. Martin | January 26, 2012, 1:41PM

We may never know exactly what President Obama said to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) during his trip to the state on Wednesday, but it's clear things didn't go well.

What was supposed to be a trip focusing on jobs and innovation a day after the State of the Union instead became a story about finger pointing and who said what to whom during a brief exchange on an airport tarmac.

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Fiesta Bowl

Arizona Politicians Cleared In Fiesta Bowl Scandal By Republican Prosecutor

Nick R. Martin | December 21, 2011, 2:15PM

Former Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce (R)

A Republican prosecutor has cleared more than 30 Arizona politicians and three lobbyists of criminal wrongdoing in the Fiesta Bowl scandal, saying the state's laws just weren't tough enough for him to press charges.

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Russell Pearce

Group That Recalled Russell Pearce Targets Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio

Jillian Rayfield | November 22, 2011, 1:35PM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

The group behind the successful recall of Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce is now targeting infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

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Jan Brewer

Jan Brewer Ousts Chief Of AZ Independent Redistricting Commission

Jillian Rayfield | November 2, 2011, 10:27AM

Arizona's Republican-controlled Senate upheld a decision by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) to oust the chair of the state's Independent Redistricting Commission, citing "gross misconduct" and Democratic bias.

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Immigration

Jan Brewer: Public Response To AZ Immigration Law Was Like 'Waterboarding'

Brian Fung | October 21, 2011, 11:47AM

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is spitting up venom after eating scorpions for breakfast.

Brewer's arthropodically-titled new book, which hits stores Nov. 1, lashes out at the Obama administration over its opposition to her push for SB 1070, the state's anti-immigration law critics said would lead to racial profiling. In the period leading up to the bill's passage, Brewer writes, the flood of feedback from either side of the debate threatened to overwhelm her. The torrent was so strong that she explicitly compares the experience to waterboarding, the Arizona Republic reports.

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AZ Immigation Law

Jan Brewer Files Supreme Court Appeal Over AZ Immigration Law

Jillian Rayfield | August 10, 2011, 6:25PM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court's preliminary injunction against the state's controversial immigration law.

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Jan Brewer

Brewer Planning Supreme Court Appeal Over AZ Immigration Law

Jillian Rayfield | May 9, 2011, 4:00PM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) announced Monday that she will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a preliminary injunction against the state's controversial immigration law.

In April, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a lower court's decision to block key parts of the law until the Department of Justice's lawsuit against it is decided.

Brewer, along with Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, said Monday that because the matter is of some urgency, they would bypass a ruling by the full Ninth Circuit and head straight for the Supreme Court.

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Arizona

DOJ Asks Courts To Throw Out Arizona Suit Over Border Security

Jillian Rayfield | April 14, 2011, 11:45AM

Attorney General Eric Holder

The federal government has asked a judge to throw out the state of Arizona's lawsuit over border security, calling the suit "of a political nature" and coloring it as an attempt to spin the government's own suit against Arizona over its controversial immigration law.

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Arizona

Ninth Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Arizona Immigration Law

Jillian Rayfield | April 11, 2011, 2:58PM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) and Attorney General Eric Holder

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday struck down Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's appeal of a preliminary injunction against the state's controversial immigration law, upholding the decision by a District Court judge to block key parts of the law until the Justice Department's lawsuit against it is decided.

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Abortion

Arizona Approves Nation's First Ban On Gender, Race Based Abortions

Jon Terbush | March 30, 2011, 8:37AM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed on Tuesday a bill to criminalize abortions based on the race or sex of a fetus, making the state the first in the nation to do so.

The bill, H.B. 2443, makes it a felony for a doctor to perform such abortions, and a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison.

AZCentral reports:

The law allows the father of an aborted fetus - or, if the mother is a minor, the mother's parents - to take legal action against the doctor or other health-care provider who performed the abortion.

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Arizona

Brewer Falsely Claimed Immigrants Beheaded People In Arizona (VIDEO)

Rachel Slajda | July 1, 2010, 6:43PM

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R)

When defending her highly criticized immigration law, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) often lists the myriad problems she says undocumented immigrants bring to her state. In an interview on Fox News last week, for example, she claimed: "We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings ..."

There's no better way, it seems, to make the case for strict anti-immigration laws than to claim that undocumented immigrants are pouring into the country to decapitate innocent Americans.

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AZ Immigation Law

WATCH: The Best Worst Moments From Arizona's Anti-Profiling Training Video

Rachel Slajda | July 1, 2010, 3:47PM

A still from Arizona's immigration training video

When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the state's sweeping, and controversial, immigration law earlier this year, she also signed an executive order requiring that law enforcement officers get additional training on how to avoid racial profiling.

Today, the hour-long training video the state created was released to the public. Surprisingly, it mainly focuses on how to avoid the public appearance that the law's enforcement amounts to racial profiling.

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Arizona

GOP Candidate for AZ-GOV Wants 'Tent Cities' For Illegal Immigrants Convicted of Other Crimes

Jillian Rayfield | June 10, 2010, 3:57PM

AZ State Treasurer Dean Martin and AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Dean Martin, Arizona state treasurer and Republican candidate for governor, is pushing a plan that would create "tent cities" to house illegal immigrants convicted of other crimes, modeled after notorious anti-immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio's set-up in his own Maricopa County.

In an interview with TPM, Martin described how the state could use the tent cities to provide "inexpensive temporary housing" that would save them enough money to deploy more troops down to the border.

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Arizona

The Man Behind Arizona's Anti-Ethnic Studies Law

Justin Elliott | May 13, 2010, 4:09PM

Arizona state Superintendent Tom Horne

Arizona's new law restricting ethnic studies is the brainchild of the state's ambitious top education official, Tom Horne, who is locked in a Republican primary for Attorney General against a prominent ally of hardline Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Horne, the state's superintendent of public instruction since 2002, has long sought to kill the Tucson school district's ethnic studies classes, including La Raza studies -- and he wrote the bill to target that single program. "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," he has said of ethnic studies classes that, he claims, teach Hispanics to resent whites.

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AZ Immigation Law

'Stunning' Clause In AZ Immigration Law Lets Citizens Sue Govt For Lack Of Enforcement

Zachary Roth | April 28, 2010, 6:45PM

Illegal immigrants are searched before being deported

A highly unusual provision of the Arizona immigration bill -- and one that has flown largely under the radar until now -- could take police resources away from violent crimes in favor of immigration enforcement, as well as triggering a flood of time-consuming lawsuits. One expert calls the provision "stunning."

A clause of the bill, signed last week by Governor Jan Brewer, allows Arizona citizens to file suit against any government entity that "adopts or implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law."

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Goldwater Institute

Group That May Bring Health-Care Lawsuit Is Backed By Big-Name Conservative Funders

Zachary Roth | April 7, 2010, 11:14AM

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

A conservative think tank that's funded by several prominent backers of right-wing causes may bring a lawsuit over health-care reform on behalf of the governor of Arizona.

The Goldwater Institute has offered to bring the suit for free, and Gov. Jan Brewer is considering the offer, a spokeswoman for the institute told TPMmuckraker.

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