Hoffman To Continue As Chairman Of Committee On Director Nominations
By Daniel Stefanski |
One of the Arizona Governor’s chief nemeses will be returning for duty in the upcoming legislative session.
Last week, it was reported that Senator Jake Hoffman would be reprising his role as the Chairman of the Arizona Senate Committee on Director Nominations (DINO).
“We’ve seen the tragic fallout from Katie Hobbs’ fake director scheme and its impacts on Arizonans in recent months, including the death of a child in DCS custody and a major $2 million fraudulent transfer of taxpayer dollars from DOH,” said Chairman Hoffman. “These heartbreaking or otherwise incredibly serious incidents could have been avoided had she followed the law and taken the Senate confirmation process seriously. When her illegal ploy didn’t work, she spent millions of dollars trying to flip control of the Legislature to get her radical nominees approved by Democrats and failed miserably. The committee invites Katie Hobbs to come to the table with sane, nonpartisan, qualified nominees, and we will approve them. What we won’t do is rubberstamp unqualified radicals.”
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen told AZ Free News, “I formed the DINO committee to make sure nominations are competent and nonpartisan. In the past, we have seen Governor nominees get approved with very little vetting. With a thorough review of each nominee, we will assure that our citizens have the best directors possible.”
On February 2, 2023, Petersen announced the formation of the Senate Committee on Director Nominations, tasking this panel “with gathering information and evaluating qualifications on the governor’s executive appointments in order to recommend a course of action for the Senate to take on each individual.” The Senate President appointed five members to serve on the committee – three Republicans and two Democrats.
Over the next several months, the committee held multiple hearings for Hobbs’ nominees. Although Hobbs was upset that not every one of her nominees received a passing grade, Petersen reminded observers that the process chosen by the Senate had “approved 70 percent of her nominees,” adding that “we are not a rubber stamp.”
In September 2023, Hobbs sent a letter to Petersen, informing him that she would “withdraw all director nominations that remain pending before the Senate and pursue other lawful avenues of ensuring State government can continue to function for Arizonans.” The governor blamed Senate Republicans for not “fulfilling (their) statutory obligations in good faith.”
After receiving Hobbs’ correspondence, Petersen stated, “This move by the Executive Branch showcases another prime example of an elected official who believes they’re already above the law and will go to extreme measures to bypass the requirements of the law when they don’t get their way.” Petersen also warned of the consequences of Hobbs’ unprecedented actions, saying, “Without directors fulfilling these obligations, the legality of every decision made by these state agencies is dubious, and litigation against the state would surely prevail.”
It didn’t take long for Petersen’s warning to come to fruition. One day after his statement, Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee held a Board of Investment Meeting and refused to recognize “employees from the Department of Administration or the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions as legally participating members.”
The Arizona State Senate then filed a lawsuit in the Maricopa County Superior Court against Hobbs in December 2023 over her refusal “to nominate agency directors, bypassing the Senate’s advice and consent processes.” The lawsuit asked the Court to declare that the Governor has violated state law and to require her to nominate directors to any of the agencies missing Senate-confirmed heads.
Earlier this year, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott A. Blaney issued a ruling in the lawsuit, concluding that the Governor “has improperly, unilaterally appointed de facto directors for these 13 agencies, [and] must comply with the procedures and deadlines in ARS 38-211 (B) & (C) for appointment of the agency directors.”
In his ruling, Judge Blaney wrote, “It is also not lost on the Court that the Executive Deputy Directors are the same individuals that the Governor previously nominated and forwarded to the Senate for review, but withdrew when she grew frustrated with the Senate…Under Arizona law, directors run the respective administrative agencies and are appointed to their important positions through a statutorily defined process. That process requires oversight by the legislative branch. Here the Governor willfully circumvented that statutory process and eliminated the Legislative branch from its oversight role.”
Judge Blaney also asserted that “if the Court were to agree that the Governor can side-step applicable statutes in this manner to arrive at her desired end state, it would render meaningless [all statutes governing this process].” The judge stated that “the Court therefore cannot arrive at any statutory interpretation that results in elimination of the Senate’s consent role from the statutory scheme.”
Blaney ended his ruling by expressing his desire for both the Governor’s Office and Senate Republicans to come together to resolve the matter between them. He wrote, “The Court will set a separate evidentiary hearing or oral argument for a date in late July or early August 2024. This will give these co-equal branches of government an opportunity to meet and confer in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of this dispute.”
Both sides were able to reach an accord soon after the court decision. In August, Arizona Senate Republicans announced that “Governor Katie Hobbs admit[ted] she violated state law through her scheme to circumvent the Senate confirmation process for director nominations and has agreed to submit new candidates for consideration, as required by law.”
Many of those new nominees from the Governor’s Office are expected to be sent to the Arizona Senate at the start of the 57th Legislature in January, setting up potentially contentious battles over their qualifications with legislative Republicans.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.