Call it the Ward Connerly bailout. By putting an amendment to eliminate affirmative action programs in state government on the ballot itself, the Arizona State legislature will save Connerly's dysfunctional political organization from the expense -- and logistics -- of qualifying a ballot initiative in the state. Connerly's attempts to qualify just such an initiative faltered last year because of his group's failure to manage the petition process properly. (One lesson: don't trust Maricopa County signature gatherers, some of whom engaged in massive petition fraud). Connerly also failed in attempts to qualify anti-affirmative action initiatives in other states.

Republicans seem to think this issue will be a winner for them in Arizona. I suspect they may find that the issue boomerangs, and offers an opportunity for the left there to organize Latinos in opposition -- and make long term political gains that turn Arizona into a blue state in 2012.

A new national report last week found that no state had suffered a greater decline in income tax revenues than Arizona -- more than 50 percent. You would think that the entire focus of the state legislature would be on that subject. You'd think wrong.

The legislature is mired in a years-long debate over cameras that take pictures of speeding motorists. The debate has been driven by direct democracy. A group of citizens is gathering signatures to qualify an initiative to ban such cameras; their hope is that the pressure of the initiative will force lawmakers to ban the cameras themselves. The entire dispute is outlined here.

Arizona's new governor, Jan Brewer, who took over when Janet Napolitano joined President Obama's cabinet as homeland security secretary, is seeking to limit initiative power in the state. Among other changes, she wants to undo a constitutional amendment that makes it next to impossible for the legislature to change a law enacted by ballot initiative.

As the Arizona Republic explains in this thorough history, Brewer is re-opening an argument that is as old as the state. 

The question of whether Prop 13 was good or bad for California is still a contested one. But that hasn't stopped "anti-tax" activists in Arizona from filing an initiative Friday that is closely modeled on Prop 13.

Like the California initiative, which was approved by voters in 1978, this Arizona measure, if it qualifies for the ballot and passes, would limit increases in property values to 2 percent per year for tax purposes. It also would cap property taxes for residential property at one-half of one percent. That's actually lower than Prop 13's 1 percent limit. What's strangest about this initiative filing is the timing. Prop 13 was designed to put limits on how much your property value -- and thus property taxes -- may go up from year to year. That's not exactly a problem for anyone these days, much less in Arizona, where property values have been in free fall.

Conservatives likely will get behind the measure, but one wonders why. In a 2005 interview, Milton Friedman, the conservative economist, told me that if you're going to tax, the property tax is the least dangerous tax because you don't get less property by raising it. (The same is not true, he explained, of sales or income taxes).  

In an 8-0 vote, a committee of the Arizona House last week approved a bill that would bar signature gatherers from being paid per signature, the Republic reports.

This is potentially a big deal. Per-signature pay is the American standard for petition circulators, whether they are circulating ballot initiatives or candidate qualification papers. It's not clear what might replace such a system in Arizona. Hourly pay is probably not cost effective.

The bill still needs approval in another house committee, not to mention the full house and senate. But the idea appears to have political momentum in the wake of widespread fraud in signature gathering last year in the state.

It's a national phenomenon. Policymakers in initiative states are seeking to get at funds set aside by initiative in order to balance their budgets. In California, the targets are funds for early childhood programs (Prop 10) and mental health (Prop 63). In Arizona, the target is tobacco tax money that's supposed to be used for early childhood. Already, there is pushback, as this Tucson Citizen column makes clear.