Brewer assumed the governorship as part of the line of succession when Governor Janet Napolitano resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.

As a senator, she was known for her proposals to put content warnings on profane albums and to create a position of lieutenant governor so the secretary of state would not be next in line to the governorship.

Despite opposing his Affordable Care Act, Brewer forced her party to pass its Medicaid expansion in Arizona by refusing to sign any laws until it was done.

Other policies implemented by Brewer included performance-based funding for public schools, Child Protective Services reform, at-will employment for government employees, and loosened restrictions on concealed carry.

She distanced herself from Trumpism through her opposition to the American Health Care Act and the attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but continued to endorse Trump.

[3] One of their sons, Ronald Brewer, was declared not guilty in a sexual assault case in 1989, and he was committed to a public mental health facility where he spent much of his life.

[3] She wanted to take a more active role in how her children's education was governed, but she was unfamiliar with the political system and her husband explained to her how the school board worked.

She also led a charge to block a monument for Vietnam War protesters which earned her the nickname Janbo,[11] a reference to the film character John Rambo.

[7] Brewer decided to run for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in 1996 when it approved an unpopular sales tax to fund the construction of the Bank One Ballpark.

[1] She won the Republican primary election with 45 percent of the vote, defeating Phoenix councilman Sal DiCiccio and gubernatorial aide Sharon Collins.

[12] State treasurer Dean Martin launched a primary challenge against Brewer in the 2010 gubernatorial election in protest of her implementation of a sales tax.

[37][38] The bill's signature was followed by numerous television interviews for Brewer, including frequent appearances on the Fox News program On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.

[23] Brewer achieved more policy victories while the controversy went on: she signed several more immigration bills,[39] and the referendum for her sales tax passed with 64 percent of the vote on May 18.

[43] When critics of the bill likened it to Nazism, Brewer falsely claimed that her father had died fighting Nazi Germany when he had lived for another ten years after the war.

[3] SB 1070 complicated Goddard's campaign not only because it brought Brewer ahead in the polls, but because his role as attorney general required him to defend Arizonan law in court.

Republicans criticized the new map as favoring the Democratic Party, so Brewer accused the independent chair Colleen Coyle Mathis of "gross misconduct" and refused to implement the redistricting.

[47] The commission took the issue to the Arizona Supreme Court, which ordered that Mathis be reinstated and rejected Brewer's attempt to void the electoral map.

[47] Brewer wrote a memoir in 2011 titled Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border.

[55][56] Brewer resumed her focus on Arizona's economy when she entered her second term, passing a budget with the Republican-controlled legislature in 2011 that cut spending by $1.1 billion.

During the 2012 Republican National Convention that August, Brewer caused shock when she accidentally stated that she hoped Obama would be reelected in the upcoming election.

[42] Many Republican governors rejected the expansion in the hope that it would limit the Affordable Care Act's reach, but Brewer wished to accept it despite her opposition to the ACA.

[16] This brought her in conflict with the Republican leader of the Arizona Senate, Andy Biggs, who was opposed by an alliance of Brewer's supporters and members of the Democratic Party.

[42] Arizona received wide attention with the passage of SB 1062, which would have made "sincerely held religious belief" a defense in discrimination lawsuits.

Opponents blamed her support for SB 1070, her veto of a religious rights bill, and her corporate tax cuts for dissuading businesses from investing in the state.

This was criticized as a means to attack ethnic studies in general, but the only race-based instruction challenged by the law was a program to support Mexican American students in the Tucson Unified School District.

[84] Brewer opposed the federal Endangered Species Act and supported an amendment to the Arizona Constitution that would guarantee the right to hunt, though she vetoed bills that threatened Mexican wolf populations.

She explained this by saying non-discrimination exists as a right alongside religious freedom, warning that its passage risked social division and "unintended consequences".

[87] Brewer objected to a federal court decision the same year that ruled Arizona's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, which she considered an encroachment of judicial authority.

[88] She approved a budget that cut spousal benefits for domestic partners of government employees in 2009, reversing a policy implemented by Napolitano the previous year.

[109] Brewer was an opponent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and had Arizona joined a coalition of 26 other states in a court challenge against the law.