Hobbs says Republicans sent her veto bait and she responded in record fashion

Gov. Katie Hobbs made history by vetoing more bills than any other Arizona governor.

In the legislative session just ended, she blew past the record 58 vetoes set by her fellow Democrat Janet Napolitano in 2005. Hobbs surpassed that mark in April, just three months into the session. And when the dust finally settled, Hobbs had used her veto stamp — one she actually inherited from Napolitano — 143 times.

What makes that even more remarkable is that lawmakers worked at the Capitol only 62 days this session.

“I certainly didn’t come here to veto bills,’’ Hobbs told Capitol Media Services in an interview after her first session as governor.

She suggested that the Republican-controlled Legislature sent her some extreme bills as veto bait, including some that moderate Republicans wouldn’t have supported if they thought there was any chance they would become law.

“I think that the Legislature has shown that, in some regard, it wants to paint me as an obstructionist,’’ Hobbs said. “I think the number of vetoes does the same thing to them.’’

But Hobbs said her prodigious use of the veto stamp should come as no surprise, if not to the Republican legislative leaders, then to the people who voted for her.

“I made it clear when I was campaigning that I was going to be the backstop against things that curtail people’s rights, that don’t help us with economic growth,’’ Hobbs said. “And I’ve done that.’’

Blocked from becoming laws

There were some that fit into that area of rights, such as her rejection of four measures designed to target “drag’’ shows and performers.

A bill to forbid teachers from using a student’s preferred pronoun, and another telling schools they must dictate which restrooms transgender students can use, met similar fates.

Also failing to pass muster were proposals to tell banks they have to do business with gun dealers and manufacturers; allowing guns on school campuses; and imposing new hurdles on placement of solar and wind farms.

But perhaps the biggest group of vetoes were of Republicans’ efforts to change some of the rules for elections after the 2020 loss by then-President Donald Trump in Arizona and the victories by Democrats in 2022 for governor, secretary of state and attorney general.

GOP lawmakers sent Hobbs measures changing the verification procedures for early ballots, altering how ballot signature challenges are handled, barring the use of artificial intelligence anywhere in the election process, making it easier to remove people from the early voting list and requiring the public posting of ballot images.

They also sent a bill to let counties do hand counts instead of using tabulation machines, an outgrowth of baseless claims by losing GOP candidates that the system was rigged.

Wouldn’t even have gotten to Ducey’s desk?

Hobbs said one big reason she reached 143 vetoes is that Republican lawmakers who might have otherwise opposed some of the measures chose to simply go along with colleagues to get along.

“There’s a lot of bills that got to my desk that would never have got to Doug Ducey’s desk,’’ she said, referring to her Republican predecessor. “Republicans didn’t care to use their political capital to stop it because they knew I would veto.’’

Does that make her the best friend of moderate Republicans?

“I don’t know that they would say that,’’ she laughed.

One of the biggest vetoes — actually 13 separate ones — was over the “skinny budget’’ approved by GOP lawmakers in February, one that simply extended current funding into the new fiscal year. They essentially dared her to veto it, saying if she didn’t sign it they would not enact another state budget — and the state would run out of authority to pay its bills on July 1.

Hobbs didn’t balk, rejecting the plan because it did not focus on what she said were funding priorities. That forced GOP leaders back to the bargaining table where they came up with a plan for a $17.8 billion spending plan that got bipartisan support.

Didn’t veto voucher spending growth

But Hobbs refused to use the threat of another veto to quash a program she had sought to kill or at least curb: universal vouchers to allow students to attend private and parochial schools, or get home schooled, at taxpayers’ expense.

First approved in 2011, vouchers, formally known as empowerment scholarship accounts, were billed as providing an option for students with special needs. But lawmakers repeatedly expanded eligibility to include foster children, those living on reservations and children attending schools the state rated as D or F.

As of last year there were about 12,000 students enrolled and eligible for the vouchers, which provide an average of about $7,200 a year.

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In 2022, however, the GOP-controlled Legislature removed all restrictions, opening the program to any of the approximately 1.1 million students attending public schools. Enrollment quickly ballooned past 50,000.

In her State of the State speech in January, Hobbs said the system “lacks accountability and will likely bankrupt the state,’’ putting the cost at $1.5 billion over the next 10 years.

But the state budget she negotiated made absolutely no change in eligibility. And that didn’t please Democrats in the Legislature.

“If there is no cap on ESA vouchers in this budget, we will have a catastrophic deficit next year,’’ Senate Minority Leader Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, said in a Twitter post shortly after the deal was announced.

That proved prescient.

Less than two weeks after Hobbs agreed to ink the new version, state schools chief Tom Horne produced estimates that 100,000 students would seek vouchers and the cost for just the new school year would hit $900 million, 63% more than the funding lawmakers had just put into the new budget. The governor immediately responded, promising a new effort to get lawmakers to curb the growth.

“Obviously, this number wasn’t published before the budget,’’ Hobbs said at the time. “We have a different set of facts that we’re dealing with now in terms of actual cost.’’

“A non-starter”

By that point, however, Hobbs had little bargaining leverage with GOP lawmakers, having already signed the $17.8 billion spending plan.

A further estimate she produced just last month claiming the price tag had reached $944 million did nothing to move Republican lawmakers to reconsider the just-adopted budget she signed.

Hobbs, in her post-session interview, defended not vetoing the budget when she had a chance and could have demanded a cap on growth, if not a repeal of the expansion.

“It was absolutely a non-starter in those discussions’’ with GOP leaders, she said. Instead, she had to settle for language in the budget about “metrics’’ that will provide information on growth of vouchers spending. She said she believes that information will convince lawmakers — eventually — that the program can’t grow as fast.

At least part of the reason for the sharply rising cost is the number of parents who had been paying to send their children to private and parochial schools on their own dime now opting in to the state program.

That doesn’t bother House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria. He said it is irrelevant that parents now have the opportunity to shift the cost of their children’s private school tuition from themselves to the state, saying they pay taxes like everyone else.

Hobbs said it’s an illusion to suggest the vouchers are going to help everyone.

“Most poor families, if they get a voucher, are still not going to be able to afford private school tuition,’’ Hobbs said.

Figures from the Education Data Initiative say the current average cost of tuition at private elementary schools is $9,365. That compares with the basic voucher for elementary and middle school students who have no special needs at $6,764.

High school vouchers are worth $7,532; EDI says the average private school cost in Arizona is $13,772.

“Every kid, almost across the state, has a neighborhood public school,’’ Hobbs said. “And if we invest in those schools and it goes to the best schools everywhere, then every kid will have access to that quality education.’’

Got GOP leaders back to the table

But while the governor was unwilling to threaten a veto on the budget over vouchers, she did show this session that she was willing to use it to coerce lawmakers to produce something more to her liking, even at the risk of blowing everything up.

That’s what happened with Proposition 400, the measure authorizing a vote in Maricopa County to extend its half-cent sales tax for transportation projects for another 20 years.

Hobbs rejected the first plan in June, not only because it provided less money for mass transit than she wanted, but also because it would have required two separate votes: One for spending for roads and most mass transit, and a separate one for light rail.

In vetoing the measure, Hobbs ran the risk that lawmakers would decide they were unwilling to give more and refuse to reconsider. Failure of legislators to act would have resulted in the current tax expiring in 2025, meaning Maricopa would compete with the other 14 counties for limited state road funds.

But Republican leaders did eventually return to the table, agreeing to a final plan for a single vote by Maricopa County voters and for more money for mass transit, though not as much as Hobbs had wanted.