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State legislators want voters to scuttle the power of their own initiatives.

Legislators crafted a number of constitutional amendments that subjects voter initiatives to periodic re-authorization, audits their effectiveness, subjects them to legislative appropriation and repeals certain initiatives altogether.

GOP legislators say voter initiatives limit their ability to appropriate funds from a tight budget and call the process an outright threat to a “republican, small r, form of government,” said Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Vail.

Critics call the push to water down voter initiatives a legislative intrusion into the peoples’ lawmaking process.

GOP legislators tout the reforms as essential to maintaining Arizona as a state governed by a legislature, not direct democracy.

Now, citizens can put laws to a vote by collecting signatures from 10 percent of the electorate—around 100,000 signatures—and change the state constitution by collecting 15 percent—around 150,000 signatures. If approved at election, the initiative becomes law and cannot be repealed or vetoed by the legislator or the governor. That initiative remains law unless voters gather the necessary signatures to repeal the measure.

Special Olympics Arizona needs support for its non-state funded organization in order to hold yearly programs for the 12,800 athletes involved.

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Click the pie chart for percentages.

The organization is funded statewide by donations from charitable organizations and private donors. 

According to Tracy McCarty, the grants manager of Special Olympics Arizona, there is about an 8 percent increase in athletes per year.

Over the past two years, 475 Arizona prisoners collected $1.1 million in unemployment benefits while sitting in their cells.

On Feb. 8, the state Department of Economic Security found the 475 individuals by cross-matching lists of their beneficiaries and people incarcerated with the state Department of Corrections, said Tasya Peterson, communications director with DES.

On Feb. 22, DES began trying to recapture the $1.1 million in overpayments from January 2010 to January 2012.

DES presently can not report how much money they’ve collected and from who, but they are seeking collection in a number of ways including offsetting future benefits, seizing federal and state tax returns, and working with the Attorney General’s office to prosecute those who have collected enough benefits to constitute criminal unemployment fraud, Peterson said.