Arizona GOP seeks to stifle Hobbs' political pull

PHOENIX — One month into a Legislative session that sees the Republican-controlled Arizona House and Senate trying to come to terms with a Democrat as governor for the first time in 14 years, GOP leaders are showing no sign that they will make Gov. Katie Hobbs’ first year in office a smooth one.

Instead, they’re working on several fronts to limit her power, with plans set to ignore her budget proposal and instead send her a bare-bones $15.8 billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year this week that she’s certain to veto. And the Republican Senate president is also ensuring that people she’s chosen to run state agencies are scrutinized in ways that the previous two Republican governors never faced, signaling confirmation fights that can hamstring government operations.

It’s an emerging series of gamesmanship and gauntlets, even as the state’s public schools edge closer to a looming March 1 deadline where they’ll be forced to cut 70% of their spending for the rest of the school year. If the Legislature fails to pass a waiver of a constitutional spending limit, schools will have lay off most of their teachers and staff and sharply limit other spending.

Republican leaders say their budget plan, which passed the Senate last week and is set to do the same in the House this week, is designed to keep state operations running in case a full deal can’t be hammered out with Hobbs by the July 1 deadline.

It is essentially last year’s bipartisan budget, stripped of one-time spending that helped garner Democratic votes, plus required inflation-tied increases for schools. The plan leaves a $1.8 billion surplus unallocated, money that is usually the focus of budget talks.

Senate President Warren Peterson said during last week’s vote that approving what has been called a “skinny budget” provides certainty that it for state agencies.

“Uncertainty is the thing that gives us stress and keeps us up all night,” the Gilbert Republican said. Petersen said. “Well, this takes care of that.”

But state budgets normally are among the last items passed during the annual legislative session, with deals hammered out between lawmakers and the governor’s office after months of negotiations.

Republican leaders are starting out their relationship on the wrong foot and “are playing political games,” Hobbs told Capitol Media Services.

“We are in February right now and if they’re predicting a budget impasse right now, that means they’re not willing to work with me,” Hobbs said.

“The budget is a negotiation,” she continued. “And we put out our budget as statutorily required to start that negotiation process. They have made it clear they’re not willing to do that.”

Senate Democrats called the GOP budget plan disrespectful of their caucus and of Hobbs.

“I hope we will learn to work together, to do better, to be respectful of everyone including each other and our governor and our constituents,” Democratic Sen. Lela Alston of Phoenix said. “And I feel like this has been a really cheap shot to the governor and to your Democrats.”

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Republican Rep. David Livingston or Peoria, who leads the House Appropriations Committee, on Thursday said he’s been rebuffed in his efforts to meet with Hobbs’ team and with House Democrats on the basic budget plan.

“I have tried,” he said of reaching out to the governor’s office. “They said no.”

“You say you have an open door policy?” Livingston continued. “But I can tell you from experience, personal experience, her doors locked from the inside and the only people that she’s letting in grassroots activists.”

But a text message exchange between Livingston and a Hobbs staffer shows there have been efforts to meet with him. The messages show Hobbs staff canceling a planned meeting but offering to reschedule; Livingston apparently never reached out to do that.

Both Livingston and Petersen said Hobbs’s legislative liaison hasn’t been making the rounds at the House and Senate, a contention Hobbs herself said isn’t accurate.

Regardless, it is clear from the past four weeks that the Republicans in the Legislature are operating as they have for the last decade despite the fact they are now having to deal with a Democratic governor.

Democratic bills are not being assigned for hearings. And the standard GOP legislative fare that has passed in past years with Republican governors and stands little chance with Hobbs advances.

For example, last week a Senate panel approved a bill banning drag show performances in public buildings and in businesses where a minor could see it, part of the GOP’s ongoing effort to push back on social changes they see as endangering children and families — a bill Hobbs has said she won’t sign.

As Alston noted, Republicans are going to need to come to terms that Democrats now have power, be it shared. That’s a sea change for Arizona Republican lawmakers, and it is clear they haven’t adjusted to that reality.

“Not only that, but they’re sticking to their extreme partisan corner, and that’s fine if that’s how they want to play,” Hobbs said.

“That is not what Arizonans said they wanted in the election in November,” the governor continued. “And they can keep going that way. And I they’re going to pay the price.”