PHOENIX, Arizona – Monday marked the opening day for the 56th Legislative Session, but before getting down to business, the Arizona Freedom Caucus (AFC) and a group of Republican Legislators from the House and Senate met with the press to state they would be filing a lawsuit against newly-inaugurated Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D).
“It’s become a modern phenomenon for Executive Branches across the country to try and legislate via executive order. We saw it with Barack Obama. We see it now with Joe Biden. And now, seemingly, Katie Hobbs, she also believes that she has the ability to legislate with the power of the pen, attempting to create law that simply does not exist,” State Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), said, leading the conference.
Hobbs signed Executive Order 2023-01 on January 2nd, which outlined furthering anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ state employees and contractors. The next day, Hobbs unveiled the “First 100 Days Initiative,” which includes an alleged 100 actions Hobbs will take as Governor.
The AFC took issue with this first Executive Order, stating Hobbs was using this order to push her “woke agenda.”
“The people of Arizona did not elect Katie Hobbs to rule by executive fiat,” Hoffman said. “Yet sadly for our state, Katie feels, just as she’s shown a propensity for during her time as Secretary of State, that she is above the law and does not need to follow the laws this legislature passes. That is wrong.”
He stated that the Executive branch of government “does not have the legal right to create law that does not exist.” He said that good Executive Orders further the “legislative intent” of passed laws are acceptable, but Hobbs’s first order does not do this.
“Legislative intent was never to include extra provisions within protected classes acts,” Hoffman said.
If Hobbs does want to create laws, Hoffman invited her to return to the Arizona legislature but said her current position is not the place to do it. He then announced the AFC would “stand in her [Hobbs’s] way at every step of the process as she continues to enact unconstitutional, illegal Executive Orders,” starting with a lawsuit from the AFC and Republican Legislators. Hoffman said this litigation would arrive in the coming days.
When the AFC opened up for questions, one reporter asked if the AFC has an anti-LGBTQ agenda, which caused some of the Legislators behind Hoffman to laugh.
“I would just leave you with this. If you noticed, I said the Arizona Freedom Caucus stands to defend all of the people that we represent. It does not matter your race. It does not matter your income. It does not matter your gender, your ethnicity, your national origin. It does not matter what your sexual preference is. We stand to represent the people of this state and to do what the Constitution empowers us to do,” Hoffman concluded.
However, since her first executive order, Hobbs has signed two more. The first, from Friday, reinstates the Governor’s Interagency and Community Council on Homelessness and Housing to develop a plan to combat homelessness in the state. Hobbs’s third order was to create a bipartisan elections task force to “study and make recommendations to strengthen election laws, policies, and procedures” in Arizona.
Additionally, the campaign for Republican Kari Lake, who ran against Hobbs, stated a fourth order is on the way, which could mandate the use of children’s pronouns in state classrooms.
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Neil Jones is a reporter for The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Neil on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
