Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill giving her authority to skirt the state's Democratic attorney general and file a lawsuit challenging federal health care legislation.

Brewer signed the legislation Thursday after requesting last week that lawmakers approve it.

Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat, angered Republicans last week by declining to join more than a dozen other states in suing to block the health care overhaul bill signed by President Barack Obama.

Republicans say the federal legislation is unconstitutional in part because it requires people to purchase private health insurance. Goddard and other Democrats say a suit would be unlikely to succeed and thus a waste of taxpayer money.

It wasn't immediately known when Brewer planned to use her new authority to file a lawsuit.