The Daily Agenda: A fight worth having?
The Daily Agenda: A fight worth having?
The battlefield is that way ... Lawmakers eat shrooms? ... And another fresh face.
Gov. Katie Hobbs is picking the first big fight of her governorship.
But the battle isn’t with Republican lawmakers — it’s with her fellow elected Democrats as she throws the weight of the Governor’s Office into the race for Arizona Democratic Party chair.
Democratic party officials will meet this Saturday to select new party officers for the next two years. After a successful 2022 election cycle in which Democrats won nearly all of Arizona’s big statewide office, the chair is wide open, as state Sen. Raquel Terán isn’t seeking re-election.
Now, Arizona’s elected Democrats are split, though not evenly, on who should step in to fill the void.
In one corner is Hobbs, who is supporting former state lawmaker and current Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo. In the other corner is nearly every other prominent elected Democrat in the state — including U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, Attorney General Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and U.S. Reps. Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton, among others — who are lining up behind Yolanda Bejarano, a union worker and grassroots organizer.
While much of the progressive establishment has enthusiastically backed Bejarano, Gallardo’s corner is more moderate. Besides Hobbs, he’s gained support from some business-wing Democratic lawmakers, some unions, several past party chairs and, notably, consultant Mario Diaz, who formerly worked with Democrats like Dennis DeConcini and Janet Napolitano, but more recently for Doug Ducey’s reelection campaign (and later won a $1.2 million no-bid contract for COVID-19 outreach from Ducey’s administration).
In her first few weeks as governor, Hobbs has been hitting the phone lines with personal calls on Gallardo’s behalf, spending much of her energy on winning what many Democrats describe as a proxy battle for the future of the party.
The party chair isn’t just a figurehead. Whoever runs the party will hold the power of the party’s considerable bank account, having the opportunity to direct that cash on the races they see fit. Hobbs has a serious vested interest in ensuring that the party chair is capable of achieving their goals of flipping the Legislature to Democrats.
Still, Hobbs’ focus on the party chair race as her first big battle has both her allies and foes perplexed, especially considering it appears her candidate is the underdog.
Hobbs wouldn’t answer questions about her endorsement in the race at her press conference Friday, saying she didn’t want to talk about elections inside the Executive Tower1.
The most consistent explanation Democrats have for Hobbs’ split with her partymates is the battle for party chair serves as something of a proxy war between Hobbs and Fontes. The two camps are suspicious of each other, though several political insiders said that only partially explains why she is so intent on backing Gallardo.
“While that may be true that (Bejarano) and Fontes are friends and obviously Fontes is supporting her candidacy, so is basically every other major Democrat town,” one consultant said. “What's confusing me is like, why wasn't there a meeting of minds at some point? Why can't we all just agree on a candidate?”
By going all-in in a divided and contentious party chair race, Hobbs is setting herself up for a big victory that would focus the party squarely in her corner or a big defeat that could set the party leadership against her. We’ll find out Saturday which it is.
Watch out, Kyrsten: Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego yesterday disclosed the worst-kept secret in Arizona politics: He’s running for the U.S. Senate. He announced his entrance to the race in this tearjerker of a video that focuses on his biography of growing up poor with a single mother, going to Harvard and joining the military before becoming a politician. And that means the race to replace him in the House is on. The Yellow Sheet Report has a list of potential candidates for his seat in the solidly Democratic west and south Phoenix district, including Phoenix City Councilwoman Laura Pastor (who is also the daughter of the district’s previous longtime congressman, Ed Pastor), Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari, former lawmaker Reginald Bolding and Senate Minority Leader Raquel Terán, among others. U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the newly independent senior senator who has not said whether she’s running for re-election and is polling in the teens in a potential three-way race, was unfazed.
Add to your Rolodex: Gov. Katie Hobbs announced three more appointees for state agencies yesterday. Martín Quezada, the longtime state lawmaker and losing 2022 Democratic candidate for treasurer, has a new gig leading the Registrar of Contractors. Jackie Johnson, a former legal counsel for tribes with experience in tribal gaming and regulation, was tapped to lead the Department of Gaming. And Robyn Sahid, an economic developer who spent many years with the City of Phoenix and later in the San Jose, California, mayor’s office, will be in charge of the State Land Department.
Injuries at the speed of business: There were fewer workplace inspections and safety-related fines on companies under former Gov. Doug Ducey, and far more workplace injuries and deaths, a trio of Republic reporters found in a 7,000-word, yearlong analysis of employee safety records. Ducey wouldn’t comment for the piece.
He chewed but never ingested: A bipartisan crew of lawmakers is teaming up with Dr. Sue Sisley of Arizona marijuana research fame in an attempt to put $30 million into studying the effects of psychedelic mushrooms on a variety of health ailments. Republican Rep. Kevin Payne2 sponsored House Bill 2486, likening it to Republican-led efforts like the “right to try” legislation that lawmakers passed in recent years, the Republic’s Ryan Randazzo writes.
Windows are a pretty nice perk: For decades, Maricopa County’s emergency management team has worked out of a literal bunker, but now the county is looking at a brand new $39 million office for them in Gilbert. Employees have mixed feelings, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka writes, but they’re pretty excited about having windows.
"We're literally in a hole in the ground," communications officer Ron Coleman told Hupka.
A classic cycle: Arizona-based Carvana is the poster child for the tech implosion in a New York Times piece that declares the latest tech boom a bust now that interest rates are up and money is no longer “virtually free” for a techie with a dream.
Scottsdale vs. the Legislature: Scottsdale Mayor David Ortega spent much of his State of the City address last week hammering the problem of short-term rentals and blaming the Legislature for refusing to allow cities to regulate short-term rentals, as well as “threatening to take control of our Scottsdale Water facilities,” the Scottsdale Progress’ J. Graber writes.
“They demand that Scottsdale bend to their will and are trying to use the Legislature as their tool. Know your mayor and council will not capitulate to their demands,” Ortega said.
Times were different: The Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis takes us back in time to 1980, when the “unbelievable became reality” and Arizona passed the Groundwater Management Act by digging up an old interview with former Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt explaining how he got a Republican Legislature to go along with the idea.
Showing up is 90% of success: The Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi has a wild story about a woman who was convicted of burglary in Santa Cruz County without any defense after she decided to represent herself at trial then refused to show up.
“The result, a trial ‘in absentia,’ is a relatively rare phenomenon in which judicial proceedings unfold without the defendant ever walking into the courtroom. And technically, it’s legal to conduct such a trial, so long as the defendant knowingly and voluntarily decides not to show up,” Gervasi writes.
The law of the land changed: A federal judge last week allowed a law to take effect that bans doctors from performing abortions due to a genetic abnormality. The Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez writes that legislators approved the ban two years ago, but it got held up in the courts until Roe was overturned. There was then a new challenge against it, but the judge refused to block the law, saying it hadn’t even been enforced yet.
With a huge new crop of freshman lawmakers taking over the Capitol this year, we thought it would be helpful to introduce you to some of the fresh faces on campus. So, we’ve added a little “get to know a freshman” section to the newsletter for paid subscribers. Subscribe now to see who’s our freshman today.
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