The Daily Agenda: It's time for some answers

When all else fails, send in the AG ... The last option is "not the best" option ... And tell us your Tucson Monopoly properties.

Republican Sen. David Livingston filed a complaint yesterday against Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, the culmination of a five-month letter war he’s been waging in an attempt to shine light on Gov. Katie Hobbs’ dark money-fueled inauguration and gubernatorial soiree.

Livingston wants the AG to launch an investigation into whether Hobbs broke the law by using a state website to direct deep-pocketed donors to a campaign-managed nonprofit that paid for her inauguration ceremony and party.

Gubernatorial inaugurations always rely on donors seeking influence with the governor. But Hobbs’ was unique for its massive scale and the way it was structured — sending the money to a political dark money outfit rather than a state bank account.¹ Hobbs only disclosed the donors to that inaugural slush fund after a sustained pressure campaign from the press corps. And even then, the accounting could generously be described as spotty.

There’s a lot going on² in the 55-page document Livingston sent Mayes yesterday, but his argument rests on two main prongs: How the money came in, and where it went. 

There’s no question that Hobbs used a state website to direct donors to the inaugural dark money nonprofit. And the law is very clear that state resources, including websites, can’t be used to influence elections. 

Still, the Attorney General’s Office has historically cut a lot of slack to officials who didn’t follow the letter of the law. Former AG Mark Brnovich, for example, cleared former Gov. Doug Ducey of wrongdoing when Ducey used a business conference call to oppose a 2020 ballot initiative to hike income taxes and give raises to teachers. Brnovich said because someone asked Ducey about it, he could answer as the governor without it being pure electioneering, even if it was on a state phone.³

And others who clearly broke the law have faced little consequences. 

But whether the money Hobbs funneled to the nonprofit via the promotion on the state website was actually used to “influence the outcome of an election” depends on what Hobbs ultimately did or will do with the money.  

Hobbs’ campaign manager oversees the dark money group and its nearly $1 million in leftover inaugural funds. The governor, her office, her campaign manager and her lawyers all refuse to say what they’re planning to do with that money, either to reporters or to Livingston. 

“Because inaugural events have now concluded and all expenses related to those events have now been paid, the Inaugural Fund will provide no further information about future donors or future expenditures,” Hobbs’ lawyers wrote to Livingston, while touting the governor’s commitment to transparency.

Then there’s the issue of ticket sales to Hobbs’ inaugural ball. Those $150 tickets were also advertised on the state website, and Hobbs’ legal team has refused to answer questions about where that money went. The records she voluntarily turned over don’t contain any accounting of those ticket sales. 

Hobbs’ team, however, confirmed to the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger back in February that some of the inaugural donations went to other accounts, including to the Arizona Democratic Party. The Democratic Party declined to comment. 

Is that where the ticket sales money ended up? Nobody knows! And that’s the problem. 

Hobbs already signed a bipartisan bill to ensure future governors can’t do what she did. It’s long past time that the public received a full and honest accounting of where all that money came from, and where it’s going. Since Hobbs won’t answer questions from reporters or lawmakers, perhaps the attorney general can get some answers instead. 

Back to the drawing board: After Republican lawmakers sent Gov. Katie Hobbs a version of a Prop 400 extension that cities hate and that she will not sign, six Valley mayors penned a letter threatening to put a citizens’ initiative on a statewide ballot, the Republic’s Taylor Seely writes. That would mean the entire state would vote on whether Maricopa County residents should tax themselves to pay for roads. It’s “not the best option,” Hobbs told reporters, but it may be the only one left unless she and lawmakers can break the impasse when lawmakers return at the end of July after some “cooling off” time, the Yellow Sheet Report reports. 

Not a distinction you want: Arizona “is unique in the lengths it goes” among states to hardball Native American tribes in water negotiations, ProPublica’s Mark Olalde and Umar Farooq report in a joint investigation with High Country News’ Anna V. Smith. And those water fights have much more real-world implications on the Navajo Nation, where the lack of fresh drinking water was a major contributing factor to the COVID-19’s ability to spread on the reservation and where a brand new hospital sits vacant because it can’t access nearby water and the state won’t help. 

“Arizona has used water negotiations with tribes to curtail the expansion of reservations in a way no other state has,” they write.

Family first > America first: The collapse of the deal he had brokered on housing bills had nothing to do with why Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser decided to resign from the state Senate, he told the Capitol Times’ Camryn Sanchez.

“I did not resign because I’m mad that we didn’t get a housing bill done. It has nothing to do with it. It’s mainly because this isn’t a good fit here. I realized that I wasn’t putting my family first,” he said. 

They’re multiplying: The Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy spots another “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the Arizona Senate, this time at the security desk. The flag has been adopted by Christian nationalists and also flies on Republican Sen. Janae Shamp’s desk, he previously reported. 

Always the center of attention: The New York Times opinion pages talks about the general decline in enrollment in public schools, noting Arizona’s rural schools are especially hurting, the Washington Post takes on the role electric vehicles will play in the presidential election in battleground states like ours. Politico covers the potential for the No Labels Party to stay out of the presidential race in the states where it has actually qualified as a party, like Arizona, if Donald Trump isn’t the GOP nominee. And #BibleGate made the Washington Post. 

It’s cheaper, but still cash-up-front: Arizona universities and community colleges are still working on implementing parts of last year’s Prop 308, which requires them to provide in-state tuition rates and offer financial aid to Dreamers. Schools have done the former but are still working out the latter, the Republic’s Rafael Carranza writes. 

The more things change…: Biden’s Justice Department is trying to avoid a trial in a lawsuit over Trump’s family separation policy that five mothers filed, highlighting the president’s awkward position when it comes to his predecessor’s border policies, the Associated Press reports. Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis may learn the same lesson Arizona politicians did after SB1070: You can go too far with your anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, the Washington Post suggests. And in the New York Times, author Luis Alberto Urrea has recommendations for worthwhile reading about the border. 

Available for comment: Former Arizona flack turned Trump White House press secretary turned Trump hater Stephanie Grisham went on CNN to mock her former boss as he prepared for his arraignment in Miami this week. 

“Why didn’t he give (the documents) back? It’s because he thinks those are his,” Grisham told CNN. “He’s like a child holding on to his little toy train and nobody is going to take it from him.”

Is this progress?: A letter from state representatives condemning the Trump prosecution as politically motivated and claiming Americans have “lost faith in the DOJ, FBI and other federal agencies” garnered signatures from only 13 legislators (and one of those signed with the wrong district). That means more than half of the House Republican caucus did not sign it.

There are scoundrels in every business model: Attorney General Kris Mayes is investigating mishandling of funds at Kingman Club for Youth, taking over now-consolidated criminal investigations that were happening at the Mohave County Attorney’s Office and Kingman Police Department. The youth club closed abruptly a few months ago, though it has since been reopened with a county grant, the Kingman Daily Miner reports.

It’s not the land, it’s what’s under it: Buckeye has about $280 million set aside in its newly adopted budget to buy up land for its water rights, the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. That figure includes some money rolled over from last year. 

Help us set aside money for land with water rights. Or just like public records and stuff.

Correction: Yesterday’s report stated that lawmakers approved legislation to provide an independent governing board overseeing the Arizona State Hospital. In fact, that provision was stripped out of Senate Bill 1710 before the final vote.

Monopoly is looking for suggestions for a Tucson edition of the board game. Which reminds us: They unveiled that Scottsdale edition we mentioned a while back.

Obviously, Hotel Congress is the Boardwalk and Rialto Theatre is Park Place. But what are your suggestions?

1. Technically, inaugural donations went to at least four different accounts, as the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger found.

2. Our favorite passage in the package of letter is the part where Livingston demands email records from the dark money nonprofit — and he cites the ruling against the state Senate and the Cyber Ninjas that records with a “substantial nexus” to government business are public record, even if they’re produced by a third party.

3. Ironically, Roopali Desai, who would later work as Hobbs’ lawyer, filed that unsuccessful complaint against Ducey on behalf of an advocacy group.