Arizona Law And Government

The state capital of Arizona is in Phoenix. The original Capitol building, with its distinctive copper dome, was dedicated in 1901 (construction was completed for $136,000 in 1900), when the area was still a territory. Phoenix became the official state capital with Arizona's admission to the union in 1912.

Separate legislative buildings for the House of Representatives and Senate were dedicated in 1960, and an Executive Office Building was dedicated in 1974 (the ninth floor of this building is where the Office of the Governor is located). The original Capitol building was converted into a museum.

The Capitol complex is fronted and highlighted by the richly landscaped Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, named after Wesley Bolin, a governor who died in office in the 1970s. Numerous monuments and memorials are on the site, including the anchor and signal mast from the USS Arizona (one of the U.S. Navy ships sunk in Pearl Harbor); a granite version of the Ten Commandments; and the Arizona Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.

The Arizona Legislature is bicameral (like the legislature of every other state except Nebraska) and consists of a thirty-member Senate and a 60-member House of Representatives. Legislators are elected for two-year terms.

Each Legislature covers a two-year period. The first session following the general election is known as the first regular session, and the session convening in the second year is known as the second regular session. Each regular session begins on the second Monday in January and adjourns sine die (terminates for the year) no later than Saturday of the week in which the 100th day from the beginning of the regular session falls. The President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, by rule, may extend the session up to seven additional days. Thereafter, the session can only be extended by a majority vote of members present of each house.

The current majority party is the Republican Party, which has held power since 1950.

Arizona state senators and representatives are elected for two year terms and are limited to four consecutive terms in a chamber, though there is no limit on the total number of terms. When a lawmaker is term-limited from office, it is not uncommon for him or her to run for election in the other chamber.

The fiscal year 2006-07 general fund budget, approved by the Arizona Legislature in June 2006, is slightly less than $10 billion. Besides the money spent on state agencies, it also includes more than $500 million in income- and property tax cuts, pay raises for government employees, and additional funding for the K-12 education system.

Arizona's executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. The governor may serve any number of terms, though no more than two in a row. The current governor of Arizona is Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. She was first elected in 2002 and again in 2006 (she was officially sworn in on her second term on January 4, 2007).

Due to the state of Arizona not having a governor's mansion, the governors reside within their private places of residence during their terms in office.

The two U.S. Senators from Arizona are Senator John McCain (Republican) and Senator Jon Kyl (Republican).

Arizona's representatives in the United States House of Representatives are Rick Renzi (R-1), Trent Franks (R-2), John Shadegg (R-3), Ed Pastor (D-4), Harry Mitchell (D-5), Jeff Flake (R-6), Raul Grijalva (D-7), and Gabrielle Giffords (D-8). Jim Kolbe announced his retirement from Congress in 2006, creating one of the few open seats in the nation in Arizona's Congressional District 8. Arizona gained two seats in the House of Representatives due to redistricting based on Census 2000.

In more recent years, the Republican Party has generally dominated Arizona politics. Arizona narrowly voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, who was the first Democrat to take the state since Harry Truman in 1948. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's ten electoral votes by a margin of 10 percentage points with 54.87% of the vote.

The state's concentration of Democrats is strongest in the city of Tucson (excluding Tucson's historically Republican-dominated suburbs) and the counties of Santa Cruz and Apache.

Maricopa County, home of Phoenix and the fourth-most populous in the country, has voted Republican in every presidential election since at least 1952. However, the current mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, is a Democrat. The current state attorney general and governor are also both Democrats.

Arizona became the first U.S. state to vote against an anti-gay marriage amendment in the 2006 midterm elections. Although gay marriage is still illegal in Arizona, this amendment would have abolished civil unions and domestic partnerships for homosexual and heterosexual couples alike.

Arizona State Capitol, Phoenix