The Arizona Supreme Court is being asked to overturn the Legislature's use of budget laws to set state policy on topics ranging from teachers' seniority rights and immigration enforcement to mortgage lawsuits and municipal building codes.
A teachers union and other groups contend in recent lawsuits that lawmakers crossed the state Constitution's rules for lawmaking, including ones intended to have legislation considered on its own merits and in the light of day.
Lawsuits filed by the Arizona Education Association, the Arizona Bankers Association and the League of Arizona challenged bills or parts of bills approved in August by lawmakers and signed into law Sept. 4 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
The groups argue that the legislation violates the Constitution's requirements that bills only cover one subject and that appropriations not be mixed with other legislation. They also allege that lawmakers' actions violate requirements that only topics listed in the governor's call for legislative action can be acted upon during a special session.
Lawmakers say they need flexibility to craft legislation to deal with the state's complex problems, including budget problems.
"What we're seeing here is an attack on the Legislature's very ability to appropriate," House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, said of the league's lawsuit. "Policy is part of the budget. The two go hand in hand."
Though courts are reluctant to interfere in the legislative process, the state Supreme Court has weighed in on "structural" matters such as scope of line-item vetoes and delays in sending approved bills to governors, said Arizona State University law professor Paul Bender.
"They've shown some tendency to want to enforce those rules," he said.
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President Barack Obama expects Americans to support more U.S. troops in Afghanistan once they understand the perils of losing, and he is preparing to make his case to the nation next week.
Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Obama said it is still in America's vital national interest to "dismantle and destroy" al-Qaida terrorists and extremist allies. "I intend to finish the job," he said.
Obama said he would announce after Thanksgiving his decision on additional troops, and military, congressional and other sources said the occasion would be a Tuesday night televised speech laying out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict - and then ultimately ending America's military role.
Republican critics have been pressing him for months to decide on a next step in Afghanistan, but Obama has said repeatedly he was more concerned with making a decision that was right rather than quick.
Neither he nor his advisers has detailed an exit plan, but the strategy he is expected to describe next week would include specific dates that deployments could be slowed or stopped if necessary, a senior military official said. The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not final.
With U.S. combat deaths climbing on Obama's watch and more than half the American public opposed to escalation, the president seemed to acknowledge Tuesday that he has a lot to explain.
"I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive," he said, speaking at a White House news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"I can tell you, as I've said before, that it is in our strategic interest, in our national security interest to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively" in the area, he said. "We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks. And Afghanistan's stability is important to that process."
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