Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is waiting until the upcoming election produces a new lineup for the state Senate before she submits all the names of prospective state agency directors to the chamber.
The Senate is currently in Republican hands, but Hobbs hopes that the Democrats will take control of it in November. Whichever party has the majority will take the lead on vetting her agency heads.
“Nothing is going to happen until after the election, after there's a new Senate in place, so I just want to reiterate this agreement is with the current leadership of the Senate,” Hobbs said on Wednesday.
Hobbs recently lost a court case to Republican Senate leaders regarding agency director confirmation.
Hobbs pulled her nominees out of the Senate confirmation process when lawmakers rejected or refused to consider several of them. A court deemed that illegal.
Three agency leaders are out of their roles — and won’t have their names resubmitted to the currency Senate for confirmation because, as Hobbs said, they didn’t have “a path to nomination.”
Department of Child Safety head David Lujan, Department of Veteran Service head Dana Allmond and Department of Environmental Quality head Karen Peters are all out.
John Scott is now leading the DVS and Ben Henderson, the governor’s operations director, is now in charge of both the ADEQ and the DCS. Hobbs’ spokesperson Christian Slater said Tuesday that the office is looking for long-term replacements for both of those roles.
The names must be submitted to the Senate by the first week of January.
Hobbs also said Wednesday that she’s had multiple conversations with Senate leadership on this issue in the best interest of the state and allowing government to function.
She said specifically that she’s dealt with Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert), not Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) who leads the Senate Director Nominations committee designed purely to vet Hobbs’ nominees.
