The Gaggle: An Arizona politics podcast

It's that time of year again. They're standing outside the state fair or tracking you down in parking lots. People with clipboards and quick pitches on why you should sign the petition they're circulating. As it ramps up to an election year, it is citizen initiative season, and interest groups are taking it into their hands to put some big decisions before voters in November 2024. The details of A...

Tucson is gearing up for a city-wide election on November 7. Incumbent Mayor Regina Romero and many city council members are running again. Do Republicans have a shot in this Democratic stronghold? In this episode, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl tease out the possibilities with longtime Tucson resident and reporter Curt Prendergast of the Tucson Agenda.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Kari Lake is tossing her hat into the ring for Senate. Does she have enough appeal to Arizonans to win? The Gaggle hosts Mary Jo Pitzl and Ron Hansen discuss the possibilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most basic acts of government are supposed to be pretty straightforward. But in Arizona, nothing can be that simple, of course. In this state, the act of counting ballots, electing a governor without pushback on the process, and even following City Council regulations have been shrouded in controversy and drama.  The newest seemingly rudimentary task to join the ranks of contentious practices is a...

Arizona is a key swing state for 2024. And the playing field for president, at present, is wide. With 13 GOP candidates and three Democrats, Arizonans and voters across the U.S. are spoiled for choice. But which presidential candidate is Arizona leaning towards? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

August is usually when things cool down: the temperature drops just a little, members of Congress leave Washington D.C. and the Legislature is still soaking up their summer vacation. But this year, August is when things heated up, specifically for the Peoria City Council. August is when they tried and failed to keep the public out of an outlandish, secretive battle over a sex offender, their vice...

Kris Mayes has jumped into her role as state attorney general. Mayes has not been shy about taking on major issues, from abortion rights and critiquing the state's water policy to casting a skeptical eye on Arizona's new universal school voucher program. As the first Democrat to hold the seat in more than a decade, Mayes confirmed her office is investigating potential fraud related to efforts to o...

If you're thinking Arizona is stuck in a "Groundhog Day"-type situation with the 2020 presidential election and all its fallout, think of Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman. The Republican chairman has had a front-row seat to Arizona's election drama over the past three years and has been personally impacted by it. As a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, H...

Elections are repetitive things in Arizona: the major parties hold their primaries in the summer, general election voting ends in November and it takes days to count the ballots. And then in recent years, we have at least two years of deniers claiming the elections were stolen. Some might say that the 2022 election has been over for almost a year. But some candidates are still contesting the resul...

Tom Horne returned to the state school superintendent’s office in January and wasted no time jumping back into his former job. Some viewed his return as jumping back in time, given his outspoken stance on returning to “traditional discipline” in the classroom, his dismissal of contemporary topics such as social-emotional learning and his insistence on a back-to-basics approach on curriculum. But s...

Arizona is hot. No surprise there. But what are the City of Phoenix and Arizona at large doing about it? Listen to find out what needs to happen to keep Arizonans cool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Arizona Legislature this year set records. Not for bills passed or money spent, but for how long it was in session and how many vetoes Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs issued: 204 days spent trying to decide what to do and 143 decisions overruled by Hobbs. Both are signs of the difficult adjustment to divided government at the Capitol, something Arizona has not seen for 14 years. But what actually...

Arizona's empowerment scholarship account, or ESA, is the most extensive in the country. Now, students whose families want to send them to a private school or provide specialized instruction can do so thanks to a taxpayer-funded voucher. The program helps some families, but critics say the program's cost will strain the state budget, and there's no way to gauge the kind of education students are g...

Every week on The Gaggle, we dive into political topics and subjects that affect Arizonans. We interview politicians. We ask questions of political analysts. We break down what state and national decisions mean right here at home. This time, we turned over the questions to the listeners. This week on The Gaggle, a podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitz...

For three years in a row, Arizona's Republican state lawmakers tried to pass legislation to bar what was described as "critical race theory" from being taught in Arizona classrooms. They wanted to restrict schools from teaching anything that could be perceived as judging a person based on race or ethnicity, or cause a person to feel ashamed because of their race or ethnicity. This year, the bill p...

It’s the All-Star break for baseball. The good news for the Arizona Diamondbacks is the team is tied for first place in the National League West. The bad news is fans still aren’t flocking to Chase Field. And part of the problem may be Chase Field itself. After 25 years, it’s not new and it’s not a classic. The team has considered relocating. A move seems off the table now, however. This spring, v...

On July 4th 1776, 56 men signed a document declaring the newly formed 13 colonies as one United States of America. By this charter, they formed a new country. One free from Britain's rule. The Declaration of Independence showcased the rights and beliefs of the new country. It was a written record of what America would stand for and was signed by the nation’s founding fathers.   Today, to honor the...

Summer is here. The temperature is consistently in the triple digits, and the state Legislature is out on break. The first six months of the year are nearly in the books. While it may seem like the pages of the calendar flipped a little too quickly, Arizona was awash with political news in the first half of the year. A new Democratic governor was sworn in. Bills were passed, but a record number of...

It’s been a year since the U.S. Supreme Court erased federal abortion rights in a ruling that divided Americans and injected the issue into the 2022 midterm elections.  The ruling upended abortion laws across the country and created confusion in Arizona over whether a 19th-century near-total ban on abortions was the law, or a 2021 law limiting most abortions to within 15 weeks of conception. Arizo...

On June 19th, 2022, President Joe Biden, by executive order, made this day a federal holiday. Juneteenth, as it’s commonly called, marks the day when U.S. troops entered Galveston, Texas in 1865 to free people who were still suffering enslavement. This is despite the fact that slavery had officially ended two and a half years prior. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black peop...

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal to stave off a default by the federal government. It passed on a bipartisan basis, with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans, and now some of the most conservative Republicans in the House, many of them in the House Freedom Caucus, are making McCarthy pay for it. These conservative hardliners, including Representative Andy...

Congress narrowly averted an unprecedented federal default after House Republicans and President Joe Biden reached a deal on trimming government spending over the next two years. To make it stick, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy received more votes from House Democrats than from his fellow Republicans on a deal few on either side really liked.  It was all part of the reality of a nine-seat GOP majori...

Redistricting is the most important story in America that no one cares about. These political maps shape the power of your vote. Today, The Gaggle sits down the three independent commissioners who have overseen the redrawing of district lines. We hear how it's done and what they would change.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Throughout 2021, Arizona's dubious review of Maricopa County's 2020 ballots, all 2.1 million of them, was a national spectacle. Long before that effort concluded that President Joe Biden won by slightly more votes than the certified results showed, it was obvious that Doug Logan and his Cyber Ninjas team were partisans with no experience conducting what Republicans billed as a forensic audit. Over...

Title 42, the pandemic-era law that authorized the quick expulsion of migrants, has expired.  In its place, the U.S. government is implementing enforcement policies meant to reduce the number of people reaching the U.S.-Mexico border while also creating opportunities for asylum seekers to gain protection within the country. The transition to the new policies is expected to create significant chall...