Arizona Governor Hobbs Vetoes Right Wing Bills Including ICE Cooperation

Governor Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed a number of bills with a right wing slant, with national attention for her veto of a bill intended to make state and local officials cooperate more with federal immigration agents.

Arizona Immigration, Cooperation and Enforcement Act, or Arizona ICE Act for short, designed to require law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The Arizona ICE Act sought to make police hold anyone accused of a crime for up to 48 hours if there is a federal “detainer” on them. It also sought to prevent state or local agencies from adopting a policy of non-cooperation with federal immigration personnel. Any lawmaker could have requested an investigation under the law and the state Attorney General would have been obligated to carry it out and file suit if an offense was found. Any taxpayer could also have filed a complaint with the Attorney General and then could sue if action was not taken within 60 days.

The legislature has a Republican majority. The 33 bills Hobbs vetoed also included:

• changes in state water laws
• changes to the conduct of elections
• prohibiting the state Department of Agriculture from making any rules to make certain laying hens have room to spread their wings
• turning school board elections into partisan elections
• new procedures for verifying on a monthly basis that food stamp recipients are still eligible, which could include verifying employment records, income amounts and job-search activities
• prohibiting the Arizona Corporation Commission from closing any coal, natural gas or nuclear power plant unless its power generation capacity is replaced by a source of equal energy on a constantly available basis, which would exclude such power sources as wind and solar
• allowing construction of “small modular [nuclear] reactors” without zoning and regulatory oversight
• transferring control of some federal grant funds from the governor’s office and state agencies that currently manage them to to state lawmakers instead

All of those are quashed.

She signed 38 bills, which included:

• new rules for “sober living homes” operated privately to help people recover from substance addictions
• ending immunity for public agencies, including schools, for failure to perform background checks on staff who subsequently molest people

Hobbs declared a moratorium on approval of any more laws until the legislature develops a plan she finds acceptable to fund services for the developmentally disabled fully through June 30 when the fiscal years ends.

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