Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor of Arizona, labeled people on the right racist, but now admits she herself is racist. A jury found that her former staffer at the Arizona Legislature, Talonya Adams, was wrongly fired due to racism, and Hobbs admitted her culpability in an interview with The Arizona Republic on Wednesday.
Hobbs told the Republic, “Looking back there are probably a lot of things that I would have done differently. I know that in proceeding in her termination, I participated in furthering systemic racism.” The jury awarded $2.5 million to Adams because of the discrimination.
In April 2018, Hobbs claimed that an Arizona woman standing next to Gov. Doug Ducey flashed a white supremacist sign. Hobbs tweeted, “Governor @dougducey I hope you realize this woman is flashing a white supremacist sign. These are part of the group that shows up at the Capitol w/AR-15’s and harass elementary school children and democratic staff, calling them illegals. You must denounce!”
Governor @dougducey I hope you realize this woman is flashing a white supremacist sign. These are part of the group that shows up at the Capitol w/AR-15’s and harass elementary school children and democratic staff, calling them illegals. You must denounce! pic.twitter.com/RjamJc9tLA
— Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) April 29, 2018
The Anti-Defamation League has debunked the OK symbol as a hate sign, declaring it a hoax. The woman Hobbs referenced in the photo, Lesa Anone, was so upset at being labeled a white supremacist that she and three others in the photo sued Hobbs for defamation.
On August 12, 2017, while the Charlottesville rally was taking place, Hobbs tweeted, “The President is on the side of the freaking Nazis.”
Three days later, Hobbs called Trump’s supporters neo-Nazis, a name for white supremacists, “@realDonaldTrump has made it abundantly clear he’s more interested in pandering to his neo-nazi base than being @POTUS for all Americans.” She added another tweet in response, “I mean, we already knew this, right?”
In a multi-tweet thread on August 14, she called former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Trump staffers racists. She began the thread as advice for Trump to denounce white supremacy with his actions, including “And by all means NOT pardoning a racist former sheriff convicted of basically racism @POTUS (after you pretend to condemn racism).”
Her final tweet in the thread stated, “Oops, forgot one: getting rid of the neo-nazis in your administration @POTUS.” The tweets in that thread received less than 10 likes and mostly one retweet each.
On October 17, she accused Trump’s policies on mandating birth control coverage as racist as well as other types of discrimination. “At least the racist, sexist, homophobic campaign rhetoric didn’t make it into actual policies. Oh, wait…” she tweeted.
On November 29, she tweeted that she would be joining Zerlina Maxwell on her show. Maxwell is author of the book “The End of White Politics” and is known for calling Trump a racist.
Hobbs’ campaign manager, State Sen. Martin Quezada (D-Maryvale), also engaged in similar racist accusations against the right. In July, he tweeted that fellow legislator, Vietnamese-American Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott), is a “white nationalist” for tweeting Governor Doug Ducey’s announcement of Arizona’s new law banning Critical Race Theory. Nguyen fled Vietnam with his brother during the Vietnam War as a refugee, living in refugee camps until they were reunited with their parents four months later.
The Arizona Legislature stripped Hobbs of significant election powers last session due to concerns over election integrity. Hobbs refuses to defend two of the state’s election laws prohibiting ballot harvesting and voting in the wrong precinct, forcing Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to do so. He ended up winning the lawsuits at the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brnovich v. DNC. Hobbs has filed 12 bar complaints against Brnovich and his staff attorneys related to elections.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at the Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Arizona Capitol” by Wars. CC BY-SA 3.0.
