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Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake in an interview with an Idaho media outlet expressed disappointment that her state’s 1864 law banning nearly all abortions is not being enforced, backtracking on comments she made earlier this month when she said the resurrected measure went too far. “The Arizona Supreme Court said this is the law of Arizona. But unfortunately, the people running our state have said we’re not going to enforce it,” Lake said in a video interview with the Idaho Dispatch on Saturday. “We don’t have that law, as much as many of us wish we did,” she added....

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill that would have allowed public schools to post displays of the Ten Commandments while also rejecting another bill that would have defined the term "sex" not to include gender identity. Hobbs vetoed Arizona Senate Bill 1628 last Tuesday, legislation that would have amended state sex discrimination laws and rules to replace the word "gender" with "sex," which emphasizes biological sex at birth and excludes gender identity. The bill, also referred to as the Arizona Women's Bill of Rights, passed Arizona's Republican-controlled Senate in February. Hobbs wrote in a brief letter to...

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona judge declares a mistrial Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border. George Alan Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 30, 2023, shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico. Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards (90 meters) away on his cattle ranch, prosecutors said. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t...

Apparently there is an emergency that not enough babies are being killed in California. Never mind that California allows abortions up to birth and funds abortions at taxpayer expense. Now, Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing “emergency” legislation to allow Arizona abortionists to come to California to kill more babies in abortions. The move comes after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an abortion ban that protects babies from abortions but allows an abortion if needed to save a woman’s life in an emergency. Hence, there is no emergency – because all emergency care is allowed in Arizona for pregnant women, including...

On April 9, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed an 1864 law to be enforced that effectively restricted abortion in all cases except when the life of the mother is in danger. The decision has supercharged the issue of abortion amid an already-contentious election year, forcing Republicans running in the battleground state to address not only the ruling, but the legal status of abortion itself. Conversations with strategists and campaigns reveal that many Republicans are acutely aware of the impact the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling could have on races up and down the ballot. However, there is no consensus on how...

The Supreme Court brushed aside a lawsuit Monday from Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake challenging the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured “a fair and accurate vote.” Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue. Calling the precise nature of Lake’s claim “not clear,” the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the lawsuit was based on speculative...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) became the third Republican to co-sponsor a motion to vacate House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shortly after the House advanced the speaker’s four-pronged foreign aid plan to a final passage vote. Gosar joins Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) in supporting vacating Johnson from the top leadership position after Democrats helped Johnson push a procedural rule vote over the finish line — a sign that certain House Republicans are growing frustrated with the speaker’s leadership. “I have added my name in support of the motion to vacate the Speaker,” Gosar said in a...

A verdict is due imminently in the case of George Alan Kelly, a 75-year-old Arizona rancher accused of fatally shooting an unarmed migrant on his property near the U.S.-Mexican border in January 2023. Illegal migration has surged over the past couple of years, particularly after the end of coronavirus era restrictions. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures there were 9.8 million encounters between law enforcement and irregular migrants between October 2019 and January 2024, a figure nearly equal to the population of Michigan. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has claimed irregular immigration has created a "bloodbath"...

BISBEE, Ariz. — Boots dusty, lungs heaving, Dr. John Wiens searched the boulders of a desolate Arizona mountaintop for the last survivors of a 3-million-year-old lizard population — then said the words that both confirmed his life's work and broke his heart. "They're not there," he said. "It seems like the species is now extinct." The loss of plant and animal species on Earth is happening at a speed never seen in human history, according to the United Nations. That includes the likely extinction of the lizards Wiens has studied for 10 years — the population of Yarrow's spiny lizards...

A top leader of the national conservative group Turning Point Action, which has amplified false claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump and others, resigned Thursday after being accused of forging voter signatures on official paperwork so that he could run for reelection in the Arizona House. State Rep. Austin Smith (R) — who was senior director at Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — was accused by a Democratic activist of submitting petition sheets with rows of voter names, addresses and signatures that “bear a striking resemblance” to Smith’s handwriting, according...

As it stands, liberal Arizona voting laws have paved the way for non-citizens, whether they are legal or not, to register for and cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Air Force master sergeant Nick Kupper, who is one of several state legislature candidates vying for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives’ District 25. While the voting laws do not affect his run for office, he is gravely concerned about the upcoming presidential race. “In Arizona,” Kupper said, “even if the state can’t verify whether you’re a citizen, people can still assert that they are citizens.”...

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that women in his state could die from a 123-year-old law that bans nearly all abortions except to save the life of the mother. Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what’s happening in your home state of Arizona, as you know the State Court ruled an 1864 Civil War era law can take effect that would criminalize abortion, it’s on hold at the moment, but this is a live issue. Do you have confidence that your state legislators will take action before it...

Several frustrated House Republicans are breaking with congressional norms to boost the primary opponent of House Freedom Caucus chairman Bob Good. The Virginia Republican was one of eight lawmakers who voted to remove their party’s leader, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in October. McCarthy, who resigned in December, now plans to return the favor. McCarthy, and his friends on the Hill, including House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., have endorsed and fundraised for Good’s primary challenger, state Sen. John McGuire, CNN reported on Sunday. The delayed fallout from the removal of McCarthy forms...

March 29 to April 3; N=600 RV; Trump 44, Biden 38, Other 13

Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) said Friday on ABC’s “The View” that women in her state will die because of the reinstated abortion ban from 1864. Hobbs said, “This is absolutely outrageous, and, you know, we can talk about how crazy it is that a law passed in 1864 by 27 men now controls the lives of millions of Arizona women, but I want to talk about the effect that’s going to have on women in our state.” She added, “I, myself, have personally experienced a miscarriage, losing a pregnancy by miscarriage and the treatment for that is a procedure that...

Senate candidate Kari Lake has made calls to state lawmakers to push for the repeal of Arizona's Civil War-era abortion ban, according to a Republican legislator who spoke about receiving a call from her. The GOP-controlled Legislature is considering its next steps after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's 1864 near-total ban on abortion is enforceable. The Arizona House convenes again Wednesday. Lake's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening on her lobbying of state lawmakers. Lake, who has said she opposes the court's ruling, is among the many Arizona Republicans who...

A ban on nearly all abortions in Arizona doesn´t sit well with the Republican former governor whose expansion of the state Supreme Court allowed him to appoint the four conservative justices whose ruling cleared the way for it. Doug Ducey is among Republicans in several states who are wrestling with the consequences of their opposition to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. He expanded the state court in 2016, but thinks its ruling this week went too far. After the Arizona court ruled 4-2 on Monday to revive an 1864 law that criminalizes abortion...

Joe Biden is running new television ads promoting abortions up to birth on the heels of a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court protecting babies from abortions. The seven-figure ad buy highlights former President Donald Trump’s record on abortion and says he is responsible for it because he nominated Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe and allowed states to protect babies from abortion. Trump has taken credit for the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. Biden’s 30-second commercial will air on MSNBC and appear online. Here’s more on the commercial: “Your body and your decisions belong to...

Arizona’s Democrat Attorney General says she will not enforce an 1864 law that was upheld by the state Supreme Court on Tuesday banning nearly all abortions. “The decision made by the Arizona Supreme Court today is unconscionable and an affront to freedom. Make no mistake, by effectively striking down a law passed this century and replacing it with one from 160 years ago, the Court has risked the health and lives of Arizonans,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (pictured above) said in a statement. “The Arizona Court of Appeals decision, which the Supreme Court has struck down [on Tuesday], was...

President Joe Biden’s campaign launched a seven-figure ad buy in Arizona about abortion on Thursday in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, CBS News reported. “Because of Donald Trump, millions of women lost the fundamental freedom to control their own bodies,” Biden says in the ad. “And now, women’s lives are in danger because of that. The question is, if Donald Trump gets back in power, what freedom will you lose next? Your body and your decisions belong to you, not the government, not Donald Trump. I will...