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Rep. Ruben Gallego. D-Phoenix, speaks during a meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, in May 2022. Gallego, a five-term House member, announced Monday that he will run for the seat of first-term Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party last month to become an independent.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, formally announced on Monday his long-anticipated challenge to Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a first-term senator who recently left the Democratic Party to become an independent. Read more»

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Friday that she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent. Here, she arrives at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Feb. 1, 2022 in Washington D.C.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Friday morning that she was leaving the Democratic Party, a move that was not surprising to political observers and longtime former allies and foes of the senior senator who are now looking ahead to 2024.  Read more»

A sign marks the water line last year at Lake Mead, which has since fallen to historically low levels. That triggered a water conservation plan for states in the river basin, but Arizona officials complain that they have to bear too much of the burden while states like California are not being hit.

Faced with deep cuts to the water supply, and angry that other states are not doing their share, tribes and local governments in Arizona are increasingly talking about backing off earlier offers to give up some water. Read more»

Transportation projects were among the biggest requests by members of Arizona’s congressional delegation for fiscal 2023, the second year Congress has allowed 'community project funding' – or earmarks – after a 10-year hiatus. But requests covered the gamut, from military construction to medical equipment to counseling programs.

For a second straight year, Republicans refrained from requesting any local projects funding, while Democrats this year raised their requests by more than $194.5 million, a 43% increase over last year, when earmarks were restored after a decade-long hiatus. Read more»

More than 40 candidates are running for Arizona’s nine seats in the U.S. House, as redistricting, retirement and a president with sinking approval ratings have made the races more attractive than usual to challengers, particularly GOP hopefuls, analysts say.

Arizona congressional challengers have been emboldened by an open seat, an unpopular president and a newly drawn district map – and they have the money to show for it, setting up what "could potentially be a very anti-incumbent election year." Read more»

Jean Bishop, a Mohave County supervisor, shows a map of the radiation-exposed areas during a conversation with Cronkite News reporters on Feb. 3, 2022, in Kingman, Arizona.

In 1990, Congress approved the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to pay victims of radiation exposure - however, the southern part of Mohave County, which is just 190 miles south of the testing site, was excluded in what Rep. Paul Gosar said was an unintentional mistake. Read more»

Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Sedona, called the bipartisan VICTIMS Act a 'step in the right direction' toward addressing rising rates of violent crime in the state and nation.

Lawmakers called for action on a bipartisan bill that would allocate $100 million a year for the next decade to support police agencies and increase assistance to victims and their families to address rising violent crime rates in Arizona. Read more»

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe got federal funding for a pipeline that will bring water for irrigation to their lands near Tucson, freeing up much-needed drinking water for tribal members’ homes. Here, a worker reconnects an irrigation line in a 2017 photo from Visalia, Calif.

Pascua Yaqui Chairman Peter Yucupicio told a House subcommittee Tuesday that tribes need more federal support to implement “critical” water infrastructure projects on their lands and called for increased engagement by the Army Corps of Engineers with tribes. Read more»

Several members of Arizona's congressional delegation may have big decisions to make before next year's election based on the proposed boundaries of the state's new political map. Read more»

House members worked into the early morning Saturday to pass the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and move forward on a separate $1.85 trillion social spending package that Democratic leaders hope to deliver before Thanksgiving.

Arizona lawmakers split on party lines late Friday night as the House voted 228-206 to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which has already passed the Senate and now goes to the president for his signature - but the $1.85 trillion Build Back Better bill still on hold. Read more»

It’s not every game where the president drops in, but President Joe Biden. in blue, spent time with both teams at the Congressional Baseball Game, here in the Republican dugout.

Stanton and fellow Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Phoenix were Arizona’s representatives for the annual charity fundraiser Congressional Baseball Game – Republican versus Democrat – that senators and House members played before an announced crowd of 14,348. Read more»

Arizona school districts would not be allowed to require masks for staff and students under a state law that takes effect next month, and would be excluded from a $163 million grant program unveiled last week by Gov. Doug Ducey. But some school districts that could otherwise be eligible for the grant program appear to be pressing ahead with masking requirements.

Friday was the deadline for Arizona schools to drop mask mandates if they wanted to be eligible for a share of millions in COVID-19 state aid, but at least several school districts in the state were refusing to comply with Gov. Doug Ducey’s demand. Read more»

Ariz. Gov. Doug Ducey during a press conference in March.

After announcing two moves to punish school districts for implementing mask mandates, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey faced withering criticism, and federal officials said they would review the expenditures and could force the state to repay "misused funds." Read more»

Gov. Doug Ducey gave a live-streamed State of the State speech on Jan. 11, 2021. The speech was virtual because Arizona was experiencing the worst COVID-19 outbreak since the pandemic began in March 2020, and the state is now seeing another surge.

A day after a judge ruled that a state law barring Arizona schools from requiring masks can’t be enforced until September, Gov. Ducey said school districts enacting temporary mask mandates won’t receive some federal COVID-19 relief money unless they call off those plans. Read more» 1

The vast majority of House votes – about 92% – were cast in person this year, but more than half of all members cast at least one vote by proxy, letting another lawmaker cast their vote when they were physically absent. Some cast hundreds of such votes, including two Arizona lawmakers. Critics say they policy, introduced in response to the pandemic, is being abused, but supporters say it lets Congress work remotely like businesses everywhere.

More than half of Arizona’s House delegation cast votes by proxy this year, including two who were among the top remote voters in Congress and another who once called proxy voting “shameful and unconstitutional” but did it anyway. Read more»

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