Arizona’s Cold War

After Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill last year to ban China from owning land in Arizona, Republicans brought their outrage to national conservative media outlets.

Kari Lake took to “Fox and Friends” to call her former political rival “disingenuous,” and Senate President Warren Petersen said he’d pursue a veto override with a two-thirds vote from lawmakers.

Legislative Republicans, joined by some Democrats, had voted for the bill to prevent China from buying land near military bases.

But unlike many of the more than 170 bills Hobbs vetoed last year, the governor didn’t reject this one as unserious or ideological. Instead, she said lawmakers weren’t being tough enough on China.

She instead proposed her own plan banning land ownership not just by China, but all the countries the U.S. lists as foreign adversaries — including Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Russia — and signed it into law.

Hobbs appears to have learned that, while there’s not much Arizona can realistically do about China, there’s no political upside in seeming indifferent to the threat. As she seeks reelection, backing tougher foreign-adversary policies lets her claim a bipartisan national-security posture while blunting one of the right’s favorite attacks: portraying Democrats as soft on communism.

This year, the Hobbs administration is backing another China bill, this time requiring lobbyists for foreign adversary nations or their affiliated companies to register in a special database.

The Legislature has voted on a wave of anti-China bills in recent years, many of which Democrats opposed out of concern that laws aimed at foreign governments could unfairly target ethnic groups.

Those bills usually trace back to anti-China special interest groups. This one came from inside Arizona’s own government.

SB1100 popped up in late March as a strike-everything amendment from Republican Sen. Frank Carroll. The bill would require anyone trying to influence legislation or land a government contract to disclose if they’re working for a “foreign adversary nation” by submitting a form to the Arizona Department of Homeland Security. AZDOHS would then compile that information into a public database.

The bill would apply to lobbyists who are citizens of foreign adversary nations, as well as those representing companies headquartered in those countries or at least 30% owned by an entity on the adversary list.

Marilyn Rodriguez, representing the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was the only person to speak against the bill in committee. She argued it could blur the line between foreign governments seen as threats and ordinary people with ties to those countries.

The bill unanimously passed the House Judiciary Committee. Since it was amended onto a bill that had already cleared the Senate, it now needs a final House vote and Senate concurrence before it can head to Hobbs’ desk.

Behind the scenes, Rodriguez told us, some corporate lobbyists are hoping that never happens.

Of all the countries on the U.S. foreign adversary list, China has the most widely recognized business presence in the United States, and many of those companies show up in the Secretary of State lobbying database.

And they appear to meet the bill’s definition of a foreign adversary lobbyist because they are either headquartered in China or at least 30% Chinese-owned: tech giant Lenovo, e-commerce platform Alibaba, and drone maker DJI Technology, for example.

Arizona’s homeland security department refused to answer our questions about the bill. But during a committee hearing, the department’s lobbyist, Ryan Boyd, said the agency had looked at “foreign influence lobbying bills” in other states and pulled language from the measure Hobbs signed last year banning foreign adversaries from owning state land.

And the department generously offered to run the foreign adversaries database and collect the registration fees needed to maintain it, Boyd said, “to ensure that we are not asking for an unfunded mandate of any of our other fellow state agencies.”

The department would refer noncompliance cases to the attorney general, and lobbyists who fail to disclose that they represent foreign-adversary-backed entities could face a Class 1 misdemeanor. That’s up to 6 months in jail or $2,500 in fines.

Hobbs’ office told us the bill is still being negotiated, but that her “administration is supportive of creating a foreign-adversary lobbyist registry to increase transparency.”

In recent years, several statehouses across the country have considered and passed what’s now known as “baby FARA” laws.

The federal Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, requires people doing political or influence work in the U.S. on behalf of foreign governments to disclose who they represent.

Republican Rep. Matt Gress proposed a similar but broader Arizona-based baby FARA law in 2024 that would have made violations by lobbyists a felony instead of a misdemeanor, while also requiring all state employees to annually sign affidavits declaring they were not agents of a foreign principal.

Gress’ bill was one version of a much larger campaign. Across the country, Michael Lucci and his group, State Armor, have been pushing states to adopt legislation aimed at rooting out Chinese influence in government, land ownership and public institutions.

Arizona’s legislature has proved fertile ground for Lucci’s model legislation.

A Wall Street Journal profile published last year details Lucci prowling the Capitol grounds to lobby for three bills he worked on, including a measure Hobbs signed into law to divest state pension funds from Chinese assets.

But when the governor originally vetoed last year’s land ownership bill, Lucci joined Kari Lake in the right-wing media circuit to bash Hobbs.

This year, Lucci and other lobbyists for State Armor have made the trip to the Capitol several more times for more Arizona-China detachment efforts:

The broad bipartisan consensus is that China is the United States’ main long-term strategic competitor, and that the U.S. should reduce its dependence on Chinese supply chains while limiting China’s access to sensitive American technology.

But Asian American civil rights groups warn that the new wave of anti-China legislation can go beyond addressing legitimate national security threats and instead sweep in U.S. residents, immigrants and companies with Chinese ties.

The Heritage Foundation — the conservative powerhouse behind Project 2025 — argued in one anti-China policy paper that “every aspect of Chinese activity in the United States is suspect,” and it’s joined groups like State Armor in pushing model legislation for states to cut ties with China.

On the right, the concern is centered around communism: China is seen as a hostile communist power trying to build influence inside the U.S.

So when Democrats like Hobbs block bills aimed at distancing Arizona from China, it creates an opening for political opponents to cast them as soft on communism.

After last year's initial veto on the land ownership bill, right-wing outlets circulated stylized images of Hobbs superimposed over the Chinese flag. And Lucci told Fox News the veto “hangs an 'Open for the (Chinese Communist Party)' sign on Arizona’s front door.”

And the fact that Hobbs came back with a tougher version of the bill suggests the pushback worked.

We gave Hobbs’ office a short list of some of the other China-related bills — measures to create stricter oversight of adversary nations’ land ownership and Chinese tech in government contracts.

It’s hard to know how Hobbs will make that political point-scoring calculus on each China bill that lands on her desk — but part of it might be how to avoid showing up on Fox News with a Chinese flag behind her.