Tucson Politics

  In politics and government, rabble-rousers are necessary but so too are the people who can get stuff done in the back rooms. Raul Grijalva — who says he won't run again after November's election — has been both.

  Donald Trump has some bold educational policy proposals that he says he is ready to implement if elected president in November, but public education advocates have panned Trump’s education platform as detrimental to teachers, students and public schools.

  Abortion rights are emerging as a major issue in the race for Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 6, where U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani is facing a rematch from Democrat Kirsten Engel.

  Pima County Public Library officials have decided to "table" the draft of the plan that would close three branches by the end of the year, Library Director Amber Mathewson said in a memo to the Board of Supervisors last Thursday.

  "As a retired deputy sheriff with over 3 decades of service to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, it pains me to have to expose the absence of value-based leadership that has precipitated the decline of a once nationally recognized innovative department." — Richard Carmona

  There is a stalemate between the Department of Corrections, provider NaphCare and Arizona courts. The court battle has raged for more than a decade, and in the eyes of the courts, only marginal improvements have been made.

  State elections officials have identified another 120,000 Arizona voters who are improperly registered to vote because of a glitch in the state’s driver’s license database, bringing the total number of affected voters to 218,000 — a number that may grow.

  Without market competition, grocers face no incentive to keep prices affordable for consumers, argued Colorado’s assistant attorney general on Monday before a Denver judge tasked with deciding whether to allow supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons to merge.

  Over the last year, 54 people have faced federal charges for crimes involving guns as part of a partnership between Tucson police and the Justice Department, officials said Monday.

  A federal judge has blocked an Arizona rule aimed at enforcing timely finalizing of election results, ruling that the state can’t simply exclude a county’s results if local officials there refuse to certify them, and noting the various legal alternatives that should make the rule unnecessary.

  Tucson Water and the Tucson Fire Department are collaborating on their annual slow-burn at the wetlands on the Northwest Side, set to begin Tuesday. The controlled blaze will address mosquito and invasive vegetation problems in the area, as well as provide training for wildland firefighters.

  "Prop. 137 would gut Arizona's reviews of judges. It would eliminate fixed terms for all merit-selected judges, virtually abolish all retention elections, and replace the voice of the people with legislative influence and oversight." — 20 former Arizona jurists

  Representatives from four Arizona tribes – the Yavapai-Apache Nation, Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute and the Navajo Nation – said water rights settlements, once approved by Congress, will secure their long-standing claims and provide more accessible water for their people.

  A group formed by anti-Trump Republicans is spending big in the closing weeks of the election to convince Republicans in the Grand Canyon State to support Vice President Kamala Harris.

  The Gila River Indian Community has been a leader in Colorado River conservation efforts in Arizona, and their efforts are growing as funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will help the tribe launch new water conservation projects in October.

  About 10,000 votes would have tipped the last presidential contest in Arizona. The state has about 133,000 union members so, like other slivers of the electorate, these and their issues could be decisive.

  The saga surrounding Prop. 140 has now extended more than a month past the ballot-printing deadline, and now both sides await a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court on the fate of open primaries ballot measure.

  Pima County voters should prepare for a long ballot in the Nov. 5 election, with many more races at stake than the presidential contest at the top of the page.

  Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher will present the Board of Supervisors with an update on what her team is doing to tackle the housing and homelessness crisis in Pima County. Plus more in local government meetings around Southern Arizona.

  Retail sales at Park Place and El Con malls were supposed to subsidize Rio Nuevo, but now the polarity has reversed and those major retail sites are getting Downtown dollars.

  Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she'll take tough steps on border security, restricting asylum claims and combating the flow of fentanyl, while pushing to "modernize" the U.S. immigration system, at a campaign stop in Douglas, Ariz.

  Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris offer starkly different plans for the future of the 11 million people who live in the United States without legal status, following heightened political rhetoric and a record-breaking number of unlawful border crossings in 2023.

  The prosecution in the federal trial against two Arizona men accused of aiding and abetting a child sex abuse ring within a fundamentalist Mormon sect rested its case, closing with a witness who says she was raped by one of the two defendants when she was 13 years old.

  But this week, Sens. Mark Kelly and Ted Cruz, an Arizona Democrat and a Texas Republican, together succeeded in pushing through a measure to cut red tape that delays new U.S. semiconductor factories.

  Heat, wildfires and less rainfall are among the risks of climate change in Arizona, and some voters are looking to the November election for climate action, but it's hard to define how Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump plan to take on these challenges.