PHOENIX - This year's Arizona legislative session started with a tribute to the Tucson shooting victims and ended with naming a state gun.
Included in the crush of last-minute bills approved before the 2011 session shut down Wednesday morning was the decision whether Arizona should have an official firearm.
The bill declaring the Colt single-action Army revolver to be the state firearm now sits on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk, along with more than five dozen bills approved in an all-night session lawmakers slogged through in order to bring the session to a close.
Brewer sidestepped the question whether she will sign it. "I've not seen the bill, I've not been briefed on the bill," she said.
Along with it is a bill that will give her a chance to decide how many state license plates are too many.
The Arizona Department of Transportation reports there already are more than 60 designs. Some are available only to people who meet certain qualifications, like firefighters or former prisoners of war. But most of the rest help groups raise money, ranging from universities and cancer research to anti-abortion causes.
Brewer now has to decide whether to add nine more to that list - including one to help finance tea party causes.
The package of last-minute legislative enactments covers the spectrum of issues, from technical changes in how fire districts handle their accounts to whether the state's two largest cities should be forced to let private companies bid to take services away from government workers.
There also are questions of whether the state should solicit donations to build its own border fence on private property and whether hunting should be allowed in undeveloped areas within city limits.
The governor has until May 2 to decide what to do about them.
All this comes as Brewer acknowledged there may be a bit of a difference in the way she is making decisions now than two years ago, when she found herself governor after Janet Napolitano quit to take a job in the Obama administration.
This past November she won a full term in her own right after defeating Democrat Terry Goddard by a large margin.
"I believe that I've always been my own person all the time I've been an elected official," she said. "Maybe it just comes across stronger now." Still, she said, it's different being an elected governor. "You feel much more secure about making decisions."
The numbers bear that out. Even before lawmakers ended their session this year she already had vetoed seven bills. And she still has 168 more on her desk to review.
One likely veto prospect rises to the top. She conceded that, as a state legislator, she voted for bills to wrest control of federal funding away from the state's chief executive. Every governor of every party has vetoed every effort, each one saying the authority needs to remain where it is.
Now it's Brewer's turn to decide.
"It's something that I'm not real comfortable with," she said.
Brewer signaled her emerging views about the constitutional separation of powers earlier this week: She rejected legislation requiring her to enter into compacts with other states to come up with health plan alternatives to federal law, saying lawmakers cannot dictate to her what she must do.
The governor's political history could play into what she does with that bill on her desk calling for the bidding out of municipal services.
It does not require cities to accept any specific proposal. But it would require public posting of any proposals received.
Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, said that will pressure officials to award contracts in some cases.
The governor won't say what she plans to do with this bill. But she sees the issue from a slightly different perspective.
As a Maricopa County supervisor fox six years, Brewer said her board was often on the receiving end of legislative mandates.
"Philosophically, I feel very strongly about not having other levels of government meddling in things of people who have already been elected to do those things," she said.
"We see it over and over again, the federal government doing it to the state, the state doing it to the counties and the cities," Brewer continued. "And it's just wrong."
She said most of these decisions should be left to people who are "closer to the problems and closer to the solutions."
One bill on Brewer's desk is being closely watched by outsiders. It would override existing laws which say government agencies can declare their buildings to be gun-free zones simply by posting a sign on the door and providing storage lockers. Instead, the building operators would have to hire guards and purchase metal detectors.
"You know, I'm a big proponent of the Second Amendment and I have a long history of supporting it," Brewer said. But the governor said that does not necessarily mean she will sign the bill.
Earlier this week Brewer vetoed another gun bill that would have allowed individuals to carry weapons, open or concealed, on the public rights of way through university and community college campuses.
