Speaker’s Corner: Katie Hobbs Only Believes in Democracy When It’s Convenient

By Ronald Sampson

Katie Hobbs stood in front of reporters on August 20 and told them she’s worried about the citizen initiative process getting eroded, while in the same breath standing by her override of the Axon vote. Voters gathering signatures to put a question on the ballot, she said, that’s sacred stuff. She opposed messing with it back when she was a state lawmaker. Good for her.

Then, minutes earlier at that same press conference, she defended a bill she signed last year that did exactly what she claims to be worried about. Somebody ought to tell the governor her sincerity and her signature don’t match up.

Axon: When a Vote Was Inconvenient, She Signed It Away

Here’s the part that should bother every Arizonan, not just the ones in Scottsdale. In 2025, Hobbs signed a bill greenlighting Axon’s $1.3 billion headquarters, apartments, and hotel complex, a bill written specifically to nullify a voter-driven measure that was already headed for the ballot. Scottsdale residents wanted a say on that project. The Legislature and the governor decided they’d rather not find out what voters thought. That law is now tangled up in court and the development is stalled, which tells you the voters’ instincts on this one weren’t exactly crazy.

Axon Rendering

That’s not a governor protecting the initiative process. That’s a governor stepping on it the moment it got in the way of a project she wanted.

The Data Center Veto Doesn’t Buy Her Consistency

Hobbs wants credit for vetoing a bill in June that would have made it harder for opponents of a Marana data center project to get their opposition on the ballot. Fine, that’s a point in her favor on paper. But she vetoed it on narrow procedural grounds, saying it would introduce “uncertainty and confusion” into an ongoing legal challenge, not because she suddenly discovered a principled commitment to letting voters decide things. One veto for procedural reasons doesn’t erase a signature that killed a vote outright. It just means her position on direct democracy depends entirely on which project and which donors are involved.

Add in the Arizona Supreme Court pulling a school voucher reform measure off the November ballot days before her press conference, and you’ve got a pattern. Every time direct democracy gets close to something powerful people don’t want voted on, it finds a way to not happen.

A Bribery Scandal That Smells Exactly Like What It Looks Like

Then there’s Sunshine Residential Homes. This is the company that donated more than $400,000 to Hobbs’ campaign and legal defense fund, and then watched its state foster care reimbursement rate jump nearly 60 percent. Attorney General Kris Mayes spent two years and looked at more than 100,000 documents and came back saying there’s no proof of a quid pro quo, so no charges. Maybe that’s the legally correct call. Proving intent in a case like this is genuinely hard, and campaign donations get First Amendment protection whether we like it or not.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes

But “we couldn’t prove it in court” and “nothing happened here” are not the same sentence, and Arizonans are allowed to notice the difference. A 60 percent rate hike landing on a company that just wrote six-figure checks to the governor doesn’t have to be a provable crime to be a legitimate reason for voters to ask questions in November.

Ducking the Debate Isn’t Confidence, It’s Strategy

And now Hobbs won’t debate Andy Biggs at all. She’s opted to tour the state instead, which is a nice way of saying she’d rather control the room than answer questions in one she doesn’t control. When you’re this far behind on transparency, about a stadium-sized development, a data center fight, a bribery investigation, the smart move is to avoid the one format where somebody gets to press you on all three at once.

She’ll Probably Win Anyway, and That Tells You Something About Andy Biggs

Here’s the frustrating part for those of us who’d like to see this governor actually held accountable: she’ll probably get reelected anyway. Not because her record earns it, but because Andy Biggs is about as hard-right as it gets in a state that has voted purple for a reason. Arizona isn’t looking for a bomb-thrower to replace a governor who plays fast and loose with the initiative process. It’s looking for someone who’ll actually respect the voters on both counts, and right now neither candidate at the top of the ticket is making that case very well.

Photo Credit: AZCentral.com

Katie Hobbs hasn’t earned another term. She’ll likely get one anyway, and the only person to thank for that will be her opponent.