Tim Steller's column: Hobbs faces tough GOP resistance, crucially on groundwater

Much is routine about an Arizona governor’s state of the state speech, whether the officeholder is a Republican or Democrat.

They talk about improving education. They say we have a good business climate, but it still needs to improve. They reference the federal government’s failures on immigration and at the border.

The approaches and details vary, of course, but the broad swaths tend to stay the same. After reading about Monday’s state of the state speech in the Capitol and watching a new version at the Tucson Convention Center on Tuesday, I noticed two new details, though: One is about Republican legislators, the other is about perhaps the state’s biggest issue — water.

When Hobbs spoke in Phoenix, she was met by protests from some Republican legislators, including the three from the Tucson area’s new Legislative District 17. State Sen. Justine Wadsack joined Sen. Anthony Kern, a Glendale Republican, in standing and turning her back on Hobbs.

Other GOP legislators, including LD 17 Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr, walked out of Hobbs’ speech. It was a deeper level of dissent in the Legislature, where Democrats sat sullenly on their hands during Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s eight state of the state speeches but stayed put.

McGarr said this in a subsequent statement: “For the sake of my constituents, I cannot and will not be a pawn in (Hobbs’) attempt to appear legitimate while at the same time further disrespecting Arizonans by preparing them for more wokeness that they do not want. Enough is enough!”

Jones referenced Hobbs’ first-day executive orders when explaining via Twitter: “It took 5 seconds for Katie Hobbs to begin legislating from the 9th floor, so I will not listen to her rhetoric for even 5 seconds. There are too many questions left unanswered, litigation still moving through the courts, and many concerns about the border, not pronouns.”

None of the explanations I read for the protests made much sense to me. They boiled down to the governor having different policies and opinions than these legislators, which is to be expected. If they think she’s seizing too much power, the answer is to sue — and some of their allies have already said they will. So...?

This may sound like a bad start for Hobbs, and it certainly isn’t to be wished for, but when I spoke with her for a few minutes after her state of the state speech Tuesday in Tucson, Hobbs said it’s not her problem.

“I think it’s more of an issue for Republican leadership than it is for me,” she said. “It’s immature antics. I’m focused on the work in front of us and what we need to do to move our state forward.”

In her speech, the area where Hobbs broke the most new ground was on water — not just talking about the overused-and-abused Colorado River, as Gov. Doug Ducey also did, but taking on Arizona’s antiquated groundwater law.

No real progress was made on the overpumping of Arizona’s groundwater, outside the state’s active management areas like Phoenix and Tucson, during the Ducey administration. The water table dropped in places like Cochise County, where out-of-state dairies took advantage of unregulated pumping, and western Arizona, where a Saudi company did the same.

“Let’s close this water-poaching loophole,” Hobbs said during her speech.

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Hobbs said she will propose providing funding to communities that want to establish “active management areas.” That’s something that only one community, the Sulphur Springs Valley near Douglas, has done, and they only did it in an election last year.

For years, even as some Republican legislators proposed minor changes to groundwater law, such as measuring the pumped water, one legislator has stood in the way. Gail Griffin, of Hereford, has chaired the committees overseeing water laws in both the House and the Senate. Now she’s back in the House and holding the gavel in the Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee.

I asked Hobbs how she would deal with Griffin in trying to push through changes to water law.

“It’s really unfortunate that she has stood in the way of that kind of progress,” Hobbs said of Griffin. “It’s critical to our state continuing on its path of growth, if we want to maintain that, we have to do something about groundwater management.”

Hobbs went on: “She should stop standing in the way of communities that want to control their own destiny.”

On Tuesday, I pressed Hobbs on how she’s going to get GOP members like Griffin to move on this issue.

“It’s going to take acknowledgment that we’re in this crisis and that we all have to come together to deal with it,” Hobbs said. “I don’t know how anyone in a leadership position, especially someone who has been there as long as Gail, could refuse to acknowledge that this is part of the solution to the problem.”

There is no mechanism for making people move on this issue when they haven’t before, Hobbs acknowledged.

Finding those levers, those grounds for deals, will be the challenge Hobbs faces as she tries to press her priorities: How to get Republican legislators interested in making a deal, even if, in a case like water, the issue seems so important that no dealing should be necessary.

Hobbs can at least take some solace in the fact that Griffin did not turn her back or walk out of her speech.