PHOENIX — Two Republican lawmakers convinced Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs earlier this year to sign legislation to allow some outside oversight of the state's prison system.
Now they want to see if the governor is willing to fund it so the oversight can actually begin operations.
Rep. Walt Blackman of Snowflake and Sen. Shawnna Bolick of Phoenix have introduced proposals to provide $1.5 million to the newly created — but so far not functional — state Independent Correctional Oversight Office. The bills, House Bill 2063 and Senate Bill 1032, are identical, allowing them to advance in parallel, expediting how quickly they can reach the governor's desk.
They believe they already have the support of a majority of their colleagues.
In fact, the original plan to create the office — complete with money to fund it — was approved earlier this year by the Senate on a 23-5 margin. It also unanimously cleared the House Government Committee that Blackman chairs.
But both Blackman and Bolick told Capitol Media Services at the time that the message from Hobbs was that the idea was dead on arrival if it included the funding. So when the measure came to the House floor, Blackman agreed to strip out the funding, which is how the bill cleared the chamber 46-10 and got the governor's blessing.
But Blackman said the office serves no purpose without any cash. So he said he's reaching out to the governor's staff in hopes of convincing her that the funding in the new proposals is a good investment.
He said it's not just that the state already is spending more than $1.5 billion a year on what is known as the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. There's also the millions of dollars in fines imposed on the state by a federal judge who previously found that medical care in the prison system was "plainly grossly inadequate.''
And Hobbs?
"We will have those conversations when it comes to the budget negotiations,'' she told Capitol Media Services. "Any money bill is put in the budget pile. And that's when it's appropriate to have that conversation.''
Asked why she signed legislation to create an office to provide independent oversight of the prison system if she's not going to fund it, Hobbs said the bill she finally signed — establishing the office but with no money — was the result of "a lot of compromise.''
"I'm certainly willing to continue those conversations to make sure that we can make sure that that office is as effective as possible,'' the governor said.
But Hobbs sidestepped the question of whether the prison system needs outside oversight, instead launching into a defense of Ryan Thornell, whom she picked, after taking office in 2023, to run the system that houses more than 35,000 inmates.
"Director Thornell is doing a great job. He inherited a mess, a system that was on the brink of receivership,'' Hobbs said, referring to efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Prison Law Office and other groups to get U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver to appoint an outsider to run the prison's health-care system. Such an order "would cost taxpayers a lot more money than the system is costing now," Hobbs acknowledged.
But she also said this is not a problem of her making, nor of Thornell's.
"Our prison system has been neglected for a long time,'' Hobbs said.
Indeed, the current federal court lawsuit goes back to 2012. Blackman agreed that the problems are not the fault of the current director.
"He was put in a position that was already to hit the iceberg,'' he said, comparing it to the Titanic. "The ship was going, you are already close to hitting the iceberg, and then you change out the captain. Is it the current captain's fault that you've hit an iceberg?''
Blackman said the oversight office is designed to provide an outsider's perspective of the problems and find ways to avoid future problems.
But he said it can't do that without money.
If nothing else, he said the $1.5 million should be seen as a matter of fiscal responsibility — and not just to avoid the possibility of an appointed receiver dictating to the state the kind of care that must be provided, including the number of doctors, nurses, aides and even equipment.
Consider, he said, the millions of dollars in fines that Silver already imposed.
In the judge's 200-page order in 2022 — the one when she said the care was "plainly grossly inadequate" — Silver laid out facts she said show top prison officials were aware of conditions that resulted in serious and unnecessary physical harm and death to inmates, and actively ignored the problems. State officials were acting "with deliberate indifference'' to the substantial risk of harm to inmates, the judge said.
None of that was news to prison or state officials — nor to then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican.
In 2015, three years after the lawsuit was signed, the state agreed to a settlement promising to do better.
Yet in 2018, the state was fined $1.4 million for failing to live up to the performance measures to which it had agreed. Silver imposed another $1.1 million penalty in 2021.
Seeking more progress, the judge in 2023 issued a comprehensive injunction laying out what the prison system must do to improve care.
That injunction required the state to overhaul how it provided care to inmates, vastly increase the number of doctors and nurses to set levels, and provide better access to specialists. Other parts of the injunction included limits on putting inmates in isolation and requirements to treat opioid addiction and hepatitis infections among the inmate population.
Yet earlier this year, a court-appointed monitor told the judge the state "remains non-compliant with the vast majority, with slow (or little) progress toward achieving substantial compliance.'' And an attorney for the Prison Law Office, Sophie Hart, told Silver it was clear the state lacked the capacity or the will to fix the system, and the time had come for Silver to appoint a receiver to do the job.
But attorneys for the state went back to Silver three months ago, again arguing for more time to fix the problems before Silver appoints a receiver.
Blackman said that lack of progress underlines the need for what he and Bolick are seeking.
"The oversight committee will help our state lawmakers, the governor's office, and those folks that have to manage internally the Department of Corrections on how we can come up with ways to fix that,'' he said. Blackman said outside oversight and recommendations even could get the issue out of federal court and provide "a chance to move past this.''
"I mean, we can't keep doing the same thing and expecting a better outcome,'' he said. "It's not working right now, and it has to be checked. And it cannot be checked internally, from inside the department, because it's easier, it's better to have a second set of eyes looking at it.''
He acknowledged it isn't just Hobbs who needs to be convinced to support the funding.
First, he and Bolick need the votes of their colleagues to get the appropriation to the governor's desk. And Blackman said he already is working on it.
