PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona's nearly broke redistricting commission may get additional funding from the Legislature. The additional funding is subject to approval by the full Legislature, but a House committee on Wednesday voted unanimously for a bill to provide a supplemental appropriation to the commission. A Senate committee endorsed similar legislation Tuesday. The commission has requested $1.1 million but the bill doesn't specify a dollar amount. That will be decided later in the legislative process. The commission says unanticipated legal expenses are close to using up its funding. It says it needs to be ready to defend its new congressional and legislative maps and explain them to federal voting-rights enforcers. Commission Executive Director Ray Bladine (blay-deen) warns that the state's election calendar could be thrown ... Continue reading →
WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Carmona arrived in Washington a political novice in 2002 and left four years later scarred and frustrated. He didn’t go quietly. A year after his term as the nation’s 17th surgeon general, the one-time $500 campaign donor to President George W. Bush turned on the administration, telling Congress that mid-level GOP appointees orchestrated his appearances for political gain and muzzled him on hot-button issues like stem cell research and sex education. As investigators for a Democratic-controlled House committee looked into his allegations back then, one of those appointees returned the criticism, accusing Carmona of taking excessive trips on the taxpayers’ dime to his homes in Arizona and California. The brouhaha is being refought now that Carmona, running as a Democrat, is ... Continue reading →
