Tim Steller's column: Arizona Gov. Hobbs begins term with an overhang

Some people start the year with a hangover.

Katie Hobbs is starting it with an overhang.

Events from late 2022 will be overhanging Arizona’s new governor as she’s starting her first term, thanks especially to a couple of late decisions made by outgoing governor Doug Ducey, but also to people’s ongoing inability to move on from the 2022 election.

Ducey, of course, is a Republican, and Hobbs is a Democrat, and they have clashed sporadically over the years. However, on Dec. 29, days before he left office, Ducey penned a gracious handwritten note to Hobbs.

“Every day as governor is an adventure,” Ducey wrote, according to ABC 15 in Phoenix. “It is the greatest job in politics and an immense responsibility. I know you will serve the people of Arizona well.”

He added that, if he can be helpful “I’m only a phone call away.”

But about the same time Ducey was writing that, Hobbs learned he was trying to tie her hands over how to spend federal American Rescue Plan money. This is the money, approved by Congress in March 2021, meant to salve the effects of the pandemic and our responses to it.

It appears, in short, that Ducey was working in the last days to ensure that his pet projects still got funded with ARPA money even after he left office.

Ducey’s team was altering contracts for grants of rescue plan money, inserting new clauses that took away the state’s ability to change the contracts, said Hobbs spokeswoman C. Murphy Hebert. In other words, Gov. Hobbs would be unable to undo the choices that Gov. Ducey made, even though she now holds the office.

The Arizona Agenda, which first revealed the contract changes, reported that the state comptroller had refused to sign off on them. Instead, Ducey’s chief of staff, Daniel Ruiz made the changes, which he said affected about 40 contracts.

Hebert told me Tuesday that they don’t know how many contracts were changed and are working to figure it out. Among the examples:

$6 million to the Arizona Chamber Foundation, the foundation arm of the group that was perhaps Ducey’s biggest supporter

$1.5 million to Love Your School, which promotes the use of Empowerment Scholarship Account vouchers

$50 million to the Arizona state treasurer, apparently to fund these same vouchers

“They’re trying to prevent us from being able to utilize the funds,” Hebert said.

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Ducey also ensured in his last days that Hobbs would have no opportunity to make appointments for any of the six newly created positions on the Arizona Court of Appeals, which the Legislature approved in the state budget last year.

On Dec. 29, coincidentally, Ducey appointed three new judges to each of the state’s appeals courts — the one in Tucson and the one in Phoenix. That brought the total number of appeals court judges from 22 to 28 — a 27% increase.

The Legislature approved the increase despite the appeals court not supporting it and the caseload in those courts declining. Ducey had already appointed 15 out of the existing 22 court of appeals judges. Now the number will be 21 out of 28 — a full 75%.

In that sense, the last-minute packing of the appeals court is having much the same effect as the previous expansion and packing of the state supreme court.

In 2016, the state Legislature, against the wishes of the supreme court, added two seats, expanding the court from five to seven. Ducey filled those seats, and now he has appointed five of the seven justices on the Arizona Supreme Court — 71%.

Of course, a former governor, or president, always will have made more appointments than a new one. Last week’s appointments just built a bigger judicial overhang from the Ducey years to the Hobbs years.

If that weren’t enough, the surprising 2022 election of Hobbs over Kari Lake is still not over for some Republican legislators — notably, the ones representing Legislative District 17 in the Tucson area.

Rep.-elect Rachel Jones said Monday on Twitter: “I will NOT move on like everything is o.k. I will NOT pretend like Fake Katie Hobbs is the legitimate governor of AZ. I will NOT standby while my favorite state is stolen by radical leftists. I will NOT allow this election to be stolen. #decertifynow”

Jones said she doesn't support pursuing a recall of Hobbs, considering its cost and poor chances of success, and she wishes there was sufficient support to impeach Hobbs.

Her seatmate in the House, Rep.-elect Cory McGarr, also voiced support for trying to decertify Hobbs’ win, something that is not contemplated in Arizona law. And in a fundraising email this week, he said “Katie Hobbs is a disgrace to Arizona and is not qualified to hold elected office.”

The senator-elect from the same district, Justine Wadsack, said via Twitter, “As an Arizona State Senator, I stand with Kari Lake! #MyGovernor”

(House Speaker Ben Toma, a Peoria Republican, told me late Tuesday that he does not plan to pursue decertification of the election.)

Hobbs and the other winners of statewide elected office will be ceremonially sworn in Thursday in front of the state capitol in Phoenix. That is, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. But as she moves forward the events of November and December 2022 will be very much present.