State Capitol News

Phoenix, AZ – Corrections Director Charles Ryan detailed a series of problems
that his staffers found at the facility in the wake of the July
30 escape. Among the most serious is that the alarm system for
the permieter fence was not working properly.

(What was found were excessive false alarms. In a 16-hour period
on July 30th, and that number was 89 alarms. The system was not
maintained or calibrated.)

Phoenix, AZ – So far this fiscal year federal prosecutors in Arizona filed more
than 17,500 cases, five times as many as the same time five years
earlier. Drug prosecutions also are up, too. None of this
impressed Gov. Jan Brewer who has been in a war of words with the
Obama administration about what she said is the failure of the
government to secure the border. Gubernatorial press aide Paul
Senseman.

Phoenix, AZ – New figures from the Secretary of State's Office show 953,000
people who are signed up to vote in next week's primary listed no
political affiliation. That is approaching 31 percent of the more
than 3.1 million registered voters. In 2008, independents were
only about 27 percent of the electorate. And a decade ago, fewer
than 16 percent of those signed up to vote had declared
themselves independents. Jim Haynes, president of Behavior
Research Center said the shift is not surprising.

Phoenix, AZ – Both candidates are campaigning with public dollars. That means
each gets slightly more than $1 million for the general election.
But nothing in the law precludes outside groups from spending
money independelty on their behalf. The Republican Governors
Association has put $1.1 million into its Arizona account. RGA
spokesman Mike Schrimpf said there's a reason for that big
deposit.