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Hobbs agrees to nominate new agency directors after losing suit from GOP legislative leaders • Arizona Mirror [1]
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Date: 2024-08
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has come to an agreement with the Republican state legislative leaders who sued her last year over her attempt to circumvent their oversight of her appointment of state agency directors.
After Hobbs struggled to get many of her director nominees through a newly created Republican-led Senate approval committee last year, Hobbs went around the chamber and instead appointed deputy directors that essentially served as directors. Agency directors are subject to Senate approval, but deputy directors are not.
Senate President Warren Petersen, a Queen Creek Republican, filed a lawsuit in December, accusing Hobbs of violating state law by circumventing legislative hearings for her appointees and asking the Maricopa County Superior Court to restore the decades-long practice of requiring Senate approval for nominees.
In a January request for the case to be dismissed, Andy Gaona, Hobbs’ attorney, blamed the Senate for essentially giving the governor no other choice than to sidestep the Senate’s Committee on Director Nominations, saying the panel was “designed to slow-walk nominees.”
Gaona wrote that the committee engaged in “bad faith conduct” that “impeded the governor’s ability to fulfill her constitutional and statutory duties.” He also pointed out that the committee grilled the nominees about hot-button issues like transgender athletes, white nationalism and border security, which had little to do with the jobs for which they were nominated.
But in June, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled that Hobbs had “improperly, unilaterally appointed de facto directors for these 13 agencies, despite the actual job title she has assigned to each of them.”
Blaney ordered Hobbs to come to an agreement with Petersen regarding the appointment of new agency directors, or to return to court on Aug. 14 for a hearing, after which he would rule on the matter.
After the June 5 ruling, Hobbs asked the state Court of Appeals to review the case, but it declined to do so.
Blaney accepted the agreement between Hobbs and Petersen on Monday.
The agreement requires Hobbs to nominate directors for the open positions and transmit the nominations to the Senate by the first week of the next regular legislative session, in January.
“The Court finds that the Governor did not comply with these requirements for the agency director positions at issue,” Blaney wrote.
Because the director positions were vacated outside of a legislative session, state law does not require Hobbs to make the nominations immediately.
The agreement stipulates that the judgment should not be construed as “a ruling on the validity or legality of the appointment of Executive Deputy Directors for the agencies at issue or any actions taken by those deputy directors.”
Hobbs and Petersen agreed that the year timeframe during which directors must be approved by the Senate will begin on the date the new nominations are made.
Christian Slater, a spokesman for Hobbs, told the Mirror in a written statement that the governor put politics aside to do what’s best for the state.
“While she disagrees with the Senate on the law and is disappointed in the earlier ruling in this case, she has reached an agreement that includes transmitting director nominees to the Senate to ensure stability and continuity for veterans, small businesses and vulnerable Arizonans who rely on state agencies to provide critical services that they need,” Slater said. “This outcome, rather than continued litigation, is what’s in the best interest of the State right now.”
Both sides agreed to cover their own attorney’s fees.
“We continue to see a disturbing trend unfolding, where Democrats are weaponizing the government in an attempt to force unlawful and extreme agendas upon our citizens,” Petersen said in a written statement. “No elected official is above the law, and the Governor’s manipulative scheme to circumvent Senate confirmation demonstrates the crucial role the Legislature serves in holding the executive accountable against abuses of power.”
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[1] Url:
https://azmirror.com/briefs/hobbs-agrees-to-nominate-new-agency-directors-after-losing-suit-from-gop-legislative-leaders/
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