Hobbs: Area codes don't change being Arizona governor

PHOENIX — Katie Hobbs says she’s the governor, no matter where she goes — no matter what else.

Hobbs acknowledged Monday that the Arizona Constitution spells out that the powers and duties of the governor go to the next in line of succession on “the governor’s absence from the state.” That is currently the secretary of state.

When that person is gone, the powers fall to the attorney general who is next, followed by the state treasurer and, if it ever gets that far, the superintendent of public instruction.

But the governor told Capitol Media Services that’s not how she sees things.

“I don’t stop being governor when I leave the state,” Hobbs said. “I’m actively engaged in everything that’s going on.”

And what of the constitution? Hobbs said time — and things like cell phones with worldwide coverage — has made that irrelevant.

“Our Constitution was enacted in 1912,” she said. “Technology has rapidly advanced since then.”

The issue arose most recently when a series of events this past week resulted in Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Kris Mayes — all Democrats like the governor — being out of the state at the same time. That left Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Republican, to put out a statement that she would be “acting governor.”

Yee said that she would have the power to name directors of state agencies after Hobbs withdrew their nominations in a spat with the Republican-controlled Senate, which has rejected some of her picks and has yet to act on others. But Yee said in her statement she would “refrain” from doing that. And she also said that she would not exercise the powers of the governor to call the Legislature into special session.

Hobbs was not amused.

“Quite frankly, this was a partisan political stunt that Yee pulled,” Hobbs said Monday.

It only got worse when some out-of-state news organizations and bloggers, unaware of the Arizona Constitution, started writing about it.

“I think that this incident created a lot of uncertainty for Arizonan for a lot of people who, quite frankly, should know better, who were texting around, ‘Why did the governor step down?’ ‘What’s going on?’ “ Hobbs said.

And Hobbs said the problem is not with the constitutional language.

“There was a failure of civics education and a failure of journalism ... in terms of how that story played out,” Hobbs said.

Still, the governor conceded that verbiage does, in fact, have some meaning — up to a point.

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For example, Hobbs said that when she is out of state, Fontes is “absolutely” free to issue proclamations and take other gubernatorial actions. But she said there is a check on all that.

“If it’s something that I am not in agreement with, I would come back and I would undo it,” Hobbs said. She said the same thing would have happened had she tried something like that when she was secretary of state and Republican Doug Ducey was governor.

So does the constitutional provision about who is acting governor needs to be repealed or amended?

“I think clarity is important,” she said. “I don’t know that requires a constitutional amendment.”

Then what about a test case?

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Hobbs responded. “I think there’s some other ways to provide some clarity.”

While Arizona courts have never addressed the question, there is some precedent — on both sides of the argument — from other states that have similar constitutional provisions.

In 1979 Republican Mike Curb, the lieutenant governor of California, took several actions while Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown was out of state, including a nomination for the state court of appeals.

Brown, on his return, withdrew the nomination, arguing that constitutional language governed only in cases of emergency.

The state Supreme Court rejected that argument. But the justices did agree that Brown could withdraw the appointment.

But the Missouri Supreme Court concluded in 1991 that the lieutenant governor does not become acting governor on the physical absence of the elected governor from the state, but only when the governor’s absence makes that person unable to perform his or her duties.

Yee, for her part, remains convinced that the Arizona Constitution means exactly what it says. And she chided Hobbs for suggesting otherwise, comparing it to what Yee said were the governor’s illegal actions last week in withdrawing her nominees for department heads and renaming them “executive deputy directors” to avoid confirmation.

“While Katie Hobbs chooses again to circumvent the law as she has done with the Senate confirmations, she is failing to abide by the constitution in this case as well,” Yee told Capitol Media Services on Monday.

“I choose to follow the rule of law,” Yee continued. “She may not believe in the rule of law, but I do.”