The Gaggle: An Arizona politics podcast

President Joe Biden on Aug. 9 signed into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.. The historic legislation provides up to $52 billion dollars from the U.S. government to help spur production of semiconductor factories, advanced technologies and research facilities across the country.  The Biden administration hopes it will open doors to new commercial breakthroughs in emerging fields such as qu...

After distinguishing themselves from the pack, Trump-endorsed candidates won big at Arizona's primaries.  Kari Lake clinched the Republican nomination for governor and will go head-to-head with Democrat Katie Hobbs.  Republican Blake Masters will face off with incumbent Democratic Mark Kelly for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In the Secretary of State race, Republican, and notorious conspiracy theoris...

Election day is over. As of Thursday evening, gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, clinched the GOP nomination. Adrian Fontes beat Reginald Bolding for the Democratic nomination for secretary of state.  But there are still ballots to count, and it hasn’t been smooth sailing. From pens smudging ballots in Maricopa County to Pinal County running out of ballots, the August primaries gave those suspici...

Votes are still being counted, but an early look at Arizona's 2022 primary race shows in what direction it's heading. Maybe the most important thing to know is that former President Donald Trump's preferred candidates are doing well. In the U.S. Senate race, Blake Masters beat out his four rivals on the Republican ticket.  And in the state Senate, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who famously rejected...

The battle for the soul of the Republican party took center stage in Arizona. Last week, our state saw visits on the same day from former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. They talked about some of the same priorities, from border security to economic growth. But their differences now really define them.  With thousands on hand, Trump took aim at the Biden administration...

The House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol has been meeting publicly for over a month now. So far, its investigation into the uprising has uncovered new information making it clear former President Donald Trump and his political team were involved in inciting the mob. Arizona, the state with the closest contest in the 2020 election and some of the staunchest Trump allies on Cap...

Just a year after being implemented, the independent office that investigates police misconduct is under threat of being a little less independent.  House Bill 2721 ensures that all Arizona entities investigating police departments have police officers on the investigation team from the same agency being investigated. And those officers must make up at least two-thirds of the investigating body. ...

With the start of a new fiscal year looming, Republicans and Democrats came to a deal that resulted in a state budget of nearly $18 billion for 2022-23. More money for infrastructure, education and water issues and raises to state employees are included in the spending package. This week on The Gaggle, a podcast by the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, guest host Amanda Luberto talks with Arizon...

On June 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the longstanding constitutional right to abortion. It came months after a leaked document suggested the Court’s decision to strike down Roe V. Wade. The 5-4 ruling now leaves it to the states to set their own abortion laws.  In some states, abortion rights are protected no matter the national ruling. In others, abortion became immediately illegal.  A...

Drive down any street these days and you’re likely to see campaign signs sprouting up like strange mushrooms all along the corners of intersections and roadsides. It can only mean one thing: elections are around the corner.  We are picking through the notable races and candidates you should pay attention to ahead of the primaries on Aug. 2. In this episode, we take a closer look at who’s running f...

Gov. Doug Ducey heads the Republican Governors Association, offering him national relevance in the final year of his tenure in Arizona.  Here in Arizona, the race to replace him is in full swing. with no one really offering what he has. As the Aug. 2 primary approaches, The Gaggle is covering the state's most competitive races, including who is running and how they stack up. Last week, the focus w...

Early voting in the Arizona primaries is rapidly approaching. With that in mind, The Gaggle is focusing on the notable contests. While, many eyes are focused on the governor’s race and whether or not Senator Mark Kelly will keep his seat in Congress, we can’t forget that the state legislature can really move Arizona’s political needle. In this episode, our own state politics reporter, Ray Stern wi...

On May 24, America experienced another horrible mass shooting. An 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde, Texas, massacred 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. Salvador Ramos opened fire with an AR-15-style assault rifle in a fourth-grade classroom before an officer killed him to end the rampage. It is the deadliest school shooting since the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,...

Freshman state Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, has been among the most prominent voices lying about the 2020 presidential election. But her bombast goes well past political puffery. After the recent massacre in Buffalo that police believe was at the hands of a white racist, Rogers crossed a line in a vague social media post that fueled a conspiracy that the slayings were part of a federal false-fl...

With the nation's elections under siege from other nations and their integrity in question from many Americans, Ken Matta, Arizona's longtime elections security director, has stepped down. Matta worked under Republicans and Democrats and oversaw 32 elections. He ran nearly 203,000 test ballots to verify the accuracy of the state's election machines. Now, Matta is moving into the private sector as...

The rate of inflation has been on many people's minds lately, from the gas pump to the housing market to the grocery store. The main driver of inflation has been consumer demand and supply chain issues that have lingered as the COVID-19 pandemic slows down.  It is currently affecting Americans day to day, and more than half of the country says it's now impacting their long-term financial goals. In...

Many regulations and limitations that went into effect around the beginning of COVID-19 are gone. You’re allowed back inside restaurants, you can buy as many rolls of toilet paper at once as you’d like, and you don’t have to wear a mask while doing either. And now added to the list of regulations that will be lifted is Title 42.  Title 42 is a public health code that was established in 1944 as a p...

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel ended her three-year tenure as the county's top prosecutor in a hospital amid concerns that she was losing her battle with alcohol abuse and after her top section chiefs noted they didn’t think she was up to the job.  Adel's resignation sparked a dash to qualify for the election to replace her and a lightning round of interviews for an interim boss. The Maric...

Thousands of refugees are waiting at the U.S.-Mexico border. This might sound like old-news, but these asylum-seekers are getting through the border. What makes them different from the previous waves of migrants is that these people are from Ukraine.  More than 2,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed the border at Tijuana into San Diego. President Biden has ordered border agents to process any Ukrai...

In 2020, Arizonans voted to legalize recreational marijuana, and it opened the door for both local and national marijuana companies to flood the market. But cannabis is not as highly regulated in Arizona as one might expect. We are in the wild west of marijuana production and that means some corners are cut and standards aren’t always consistent. Some cannabis companies have failed to keep their p...

Recently, Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill into law that would ban women from getting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also signed a bill targeting transgender youth. The law bans gender affirming surgeries for people under 18 and bans transgender girls from participating on women's athletic teams at public or private schools that compete against public schools, including at the collegiate l...

Governor Doug Ducey has signed a controversial abortion bill into law. The new law, which won’t take effect until the fall, outlaws abortions after 15 weeks – with no exceptions for rape or incest. Those who oppose abortion rights Pro-life advocates are hailing the new law as a huge success in the fight to protect the unborn. But those who support abortion rights describe it as heavy-handed govern...

Two years ago in Arizona, and in most of the world, conditions were starting to feel apocalyptic.  After sweeping across China and Europe, the new coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, made its way to America. The nation was suddenly locked in quarantine. Grocery store shelves were barren of essentials. Workers were laid off by the millions. Life as we knew it was upended and no one how bad it woul...

On Monday, Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel announced she will resign from her position on Friday, March 25. This comes after months of dismay regarding how she is leading one of the nation’s largest prosecutorial teams. Her time as County Attorney comes to an end amidst scrutiny that she is not fit for office after her staff raised concern regarding her battle with alcohol abuse.  Arizona R...

Republican state lawmakers are scrambling to undo parts of a law they fast-tracked to change the way party activists become party officials.  Precinct committee members, or PCs, are not people the casual voters will know, but they play a key role in shaping party politics and who runs for political office. Republicans quickly pushed through election changes that reflect the state's new political b...