Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs will deliver her annual “State of the State” speech on Monday, focusing on housing, childcare, and border security, while facing a larger Republican majority in the Legislature.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs will deliver her annual “State of the State” speech at 2 p.m. Monday to a joint session of the House of Representatives and Senate, while looking ahead to a re-election campaign in 2026 and staring at members of a larger, more emboldened Republican majority in the Legislature. Hobbs checked off two priorities she says are achievable during the new session.
Expect her to offer proposals to make housing more affordable, and ideas that would make child care more accessible and affordable. Child care has emerged as an economic issue that has drawn the interest of the business community. The governor will let Arizonans know how much weight she puts on the priorities in her speech when she releases her proposed budget next Friday, revealing how much she wants to spend on those priorities.Hobbs wouldn’t reveal much about the speech beyond the larger themes. But she did say she would respond to Republican School Superintendent Tom Horne’s with these themes: “securing our cities from the front door to the border, preserving the American Dream in Arizona, and embracing federalism and state sovereignty.” Senate Republicans gained one seat in the November elections, for a 17-13 majority. House Republicans gained two seats, for a 33-27 majority. That comes against the backdrop of Trump’s “mass deportation” plans (we expect to hear more when he’s inaugurated next week) and Arizona voters’ overwhelming approval of the Republican-sponsored Proposition 314, a border-related initiative that would allow local law enforcement to arrest border crossers (that part of the proposition is unenforceable, pending action by federal courts). by supporting the Republican-backed Laken Riley Act. One of the Legislature’s longtime border hawks, Republican State Sen. John Kavanagh, seized on the Democrats’ support. “The last I heard from Governor Hobbs and the last I heard from Senator Gallego and Senator Kelly and Congressman Stanton was that they stand by President Trump's plan for the deportations,” Kavanagh said in an interview Friday. Kavanagh plans to introduce a bill that would allow U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement to lease two empty state prisons for $1 a year, “so they have places to put these people,” he said. He also wants to require all Arizona jails to allow ICE inside the jails to screen inmates.Back in 2015, Arizona voters narrowly approved Proposition 123, then-Gov. Doug Ducey’s plan to funnel about $300 million a year more from the state land trust fund to K-12 schools.An attempt to craft an agreement last year on Prop 123’s structure went nowhere. Hobbs said in our interview last week that a May vote “would be ideal.” If not May, she said, August is another option.No Arizona governor has vetoed more bills than Hobbs – and it’s not even close. Former Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano is a distant second, with 181 vetoes, but that was over six years. Hobbs told me she won’t be shy about wielding her veto stamp again this year, the third consecutive year of divided government at the Capitol. “I'm not going to sign bills that hamper Arizonans rights and that are solutions to problems we're not dealing with,” Hobbs said during our pre-session interview. Republican lawmakers found a way around the veto stamp last year: They referred ballot questions directly to voters, one reason Arizona’s November ballot was the longest in almost 20 years.During her first two years in office, Hobbs hasn’t had a full roster of Senate-confirmed agency directors. The governor has been stymied by the Senate gatekeeper, right-wing Sen. Jake Hoffman, and some of her own ill-advised nominations.“It’s unfortunate that Arizonans are being held hostage by one member, indicted fake elector Jake Hoffman’s agenda,” Hobbs said. Hoffman has been charged with nine felonies in an allegedly illegal attempt to overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results. “We're talking about agencies that protect our most vulnerable children, that serve our veterans that support small businesses,' Hobbs said.
ARIZONA POLITICS GOVERNOR HOBBS REPUBLICAN MAJORITY BORDER SECURITY
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