Hobbs says she will veto every bill until Republican lawmakers present Arizona budget plan

Gov. Katie Hobbs promised to veto most new bills sent to her by the Arizona Legislature until Republican lawmakers make their proposed state budget available to the public.

Hobbs cleared every remaining bill sitting on her desk on Monday, signing 32 and vetoing 19.

“They’re focused on the wrong things,” Hobbs said in a statement. “Instead of coming to the table ready to support middle-class Arizonans, they’ve spent months pushing tax breaks for billionaires and special interests, fighting to let out-of-state corporations pump water out from under Arizona families and farmers, and working to strip health care and food assistance from vulnerable children.”

There are two exceptions, Hobbs says — she would sign two bills pending at the Legislature that would send emergency funding to the Department of Public Safety and expand who is eligible for death benefits when a first responder dies in the line of duty.

“I understand that public safety can’t wait for obstructionist politicians in the legislature to get their act together,” Hobbs said.

The “bill moratorium” is just the latest escalation in the budget stalemate between the governor and the Republicans who control the state Legislature.

Last month, Hobbs said she was pulling out of budget negotiations due to a dispute over public education funding and accused Republicans of failing to seriously discuss a renewal of Proposition 123, a measure that increased the revenue from the State Land Trust to fund public education until it expired last year.

At the time, Hobbs said she wouldn’t re-enter negotiations until Republicans unveiled their budget plan.

GOP lawmakers appear ready to do just that.

“We're about ready to put a budget on her desk, and it's something we need to do,” Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said.

Petersen said lawmakers will be “pretty much done with the bills” by the end of the week anyway.

“So we'll let our members know that that's where they're at, see if they want to keep moving their bills or not,” he said.

Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Goodyear), Petersen’s counterpart in the Arizona House, called the move “political theater.”

“Arizona needs a balanced budget built on honest numbers, not press stunts and invented revenue,” he said in a statement. “House Republicans are at the Capitol, doing the work and ready to govern. The Governor can end her sideshow anytime by coming back to the table, doing her job and dealing with reality.”

The threat did seem to have some effect on House Republicans, though.

The House was scheduled to vote on 19 bills on Monday.

Shortly after Hobbs announced her bill moratorium, the House took final votes on only four bills, all of which must still pass a final vote in the Senate before going to Hobbs desk. That included House Bill 1503, the first responder death benefit legislation the governor said she will sign.

Déjà vu  

It’s not the first time and Arizona governor has used their veto power as a cudgel during budget negotiations.

In 2021, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed dozens of bills after calling on the GOP-led Legislature to send him a budget he would sign.

And Hobbs employed the same tactic one year ago this week as Republican lawmakers and the governor’s office engaged in a standoff that centered around funding for medical care for disabled Arizonans,.

That veto threat proved somewhat successful.

The governor’s office and lawmakers, led by Republican Rep. Julie Willoughby, agreed to a compromise by the end of the month to fund the Division of Developmental Disabilities.

However, Hobbs still didn’t sign a state budget last year until nearly two months later on June 27 — days before the deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

At this point, it looks like Arizona is again in for prolonged budget fight, something that has become the norm in split government.

State of play

Hobbs introduced her budget proposal in January, and Republicans almost immediately shot down major pieces of the plan, including her decision to back only some of the tax cuts included in President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending legislation that passed last year.

They also took a swipe at the governor for balancing her budget using over $700 million in federal reimbursements for border and immigration that spending that may never actually materialize — even though Republican leaders had previously backed a similar plan.

Hobbs has defended her spending plan, saying at least she’s shown Arizonans how she wants to spend their tax dollars.

“I began this year calling for the legislative majority to work with me to cut taxes for the middle class, deliver over $1 billion to our public school teachers and students without raising taxes, and bring down costs for working families,” Hobbs said in a statement. “Eighty-seven days ago, I showed the people of Arizona my balanced budget that does just that. Unfortunately, the legislative majority has done nothing but say ‘no’ and hide their budget from the people of this state.

Leaders in the Arizona House and Senate typically do not produce a full budget plan for public consumption, choosing to instead negotiate with the governor’s office behind closed doors.

But Petersen said Republicans will release their plan to the public once they confirm a majority of GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate support it.

“Once we've confirmed we're at 16 and 31 (votes), it'll come out,” he said.

Republicans have indicated major elements they would like to see in a budget, such as full conformity with Trump’s tax cuts. That would cut state tax revenues and could lead to drastic cuts in enrollment in social programs like SNAP food assistance, which has already dropped hundreds of thousands of Arizonans off the rolls.