Arizona Branches of Government

• Consists of the Arizona House of Representatives and the Arizona State Senate (60 representatives and 30 senators)
• Legislators are elected from small districts throughout the entire state
• Two representatives for the House of Representative for each district
• Serves two-year terms

Structure and Organization

Responsibilities and Oversights

• Make and revise the laws of the state
• Propose constitutional amendments
• Control public spending
• Manages state’s budget
• Monitor the other two branches of government

Powers and Limitations

• Can propose state constiutional amendments
• Can override governors’ vetoes
• Allowed to call a special election
• If a constitutional convention is call by the people, legislature may not call a convention
• Little to no authority over mandated funds
• Can impeach executive branch officials and judges from office

• Largest branch of government (65,000 employees)
• Multiple elected officials - governor, secretary of state, attorney general. State treasurer. Superintendent of public instruction, state mine inspector, five corporate commissioners
• Many multi-person boards and agencies
• No official is the boss of any other
• Divided into more than one hundred separate departments and agencies
• Elected officials for the five major offices are given four-year terms and serve no more than two consecutive terms in the same office
• The governor and the other four major offices only need to be twenty-five years old, U.S. citizens (for ten years), Arizona residents (for five years), registered voters, and English proficient

Structure and Organization

Responsibilities and Oversight

• Carry out the laws and judicial decrees of the state
• Governor is required to submit a proposed operating budget to the legislature
• Operates prisons, medical facilities, and three universities
• Oversees k-12 public education system
• Constructs and maintains highways
• Manages vast natural resources, public lands, and state parks
• Provides assistance to the needy and unemployed

• Selects the heads of most state agencies and fills vacancies on boards and commissions
• Although, most appointments must be approved by the senate
• Governor cannot fill every top position at once
• Some appointees may be fired by the governor but the governor cannot fire the other ten independently elected members of the executive branch
• Governor is able to strike individual items from appropriation bills
• Governor is the commander-in-chief of the state’s military forces
• Governor has the power to propose new legislation, to call the legislature in special session, and to veto a bill
• Governor has limited judicial powers, but is given the power to appoint judges and clemency

Powers and Limitations

• Courts are separated into three groups: limited jurisdiction courts, general courts, and appellate courts
• Courts of Limited Jurisdiction include Justice of the Peace courts, Municipal courts
• General courts inlude Superior courts
• Appellate courts include The Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court

Structure and Organization

Responsibilities and Oversight/Powers and Limitation

• Interpret and apply the law
• Resolves legal disputes
• Justice of the Peace courts: have jurisdiction over minor criminal cases, landlord-tenant disputes, conduct the preliminary hearings that precede felony trials, issue search warrants and injunctions in domestic violence and harassment cases
• Municipal courts: handle traffic violations, minor crimes, violations of city ordinances and codes
• Superior Court: handles the state’s most serious criminal and civil cases
• Court of Appeals: determines whether any serious legal errors occurred in the lower court proceedings
• Arizona Supreme Court: reviews all death penalty cases, choose which appeals it accepts, oversees all of the lower courts in the state and approves the formal rules under which they operate
• Judges have oversight power known as judicial review
• Judges have the power of common law
• Judges can strike down laws and policies made by other branches of government or the voters using the power of judicial review
• Supreme Court has the authority to discipline and remove judges from office and to disbar the state’s licensed attorneys