Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs last week vetoed a whole bunch of bad ideas that came out of the state’s Republican-led Legislature, setting a new record for the most bills vetoed by any governor in Arizona (185). That beats the previous record set by Arizona’s last Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, who racked up 181 vetoes but had six years to do it. We can therefore conclude from this single data point that Arizona’s Republicans have obviously gotten a lot crazier and in need of being kept in check since Napolitano left office in 2009. That’s just science!
Some of the vetoes were on small-potatoes matters, like tossing out a bill that would have added extra bureaucratic steps before any municipality could ban motorists from turning right on a red light, another that would have made school board elections officially partisan, or a third that would have imposed Git Tuffer penalties on shoplifters, because Fox News says shoplifting is a crisis. (Hobbes did sign a bill creating a “retail theft task force,” however.)
More importantly, Hobbs vetoed two big whopping legislative turds that ought to stay dead until at least the next legislative session, because Republicans hold only slim majorities in both houses, making an override of either bill nigh impossible.
The first was Senate Bill 1151, which would have ignored the stupid Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by allowing public school teachers to post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms, which would obviously make students stop killing and coveting and dishonoring their parents, to say nothing of all that fourth-grade adultery. (True story: In confession one time, I told the priest that I had “committed adultery” because our catechism teacher had avoided explaining the word, instead saying it meant things like looking at magazines like Playboy, which I had done. Congrats to Father Sheffield for not giggling when he asked me what I’d actually done. Maybe he heard it a lot.)
The Ten Commandments bill was the brainchild of state Sen. Anthony Kern (R-Glendale), who’s under federal investigation as one of Arizona’s 11 fake electors following the 2020 election, and has been subpoenaed to testify in a state investigation too. No charges yet.
Kern issued an angry statement accusing Hobbs of “abandoning God” by vetoing SB 1151, complaining that
As society increasingly strays away from God and the moral principles our nation was founded upon, Katie Hobbs is contributing to the cultural degradation within Arizona by vetoing legislation today that would have allowed public schools to include the Ten Commandments in classrooms. […]
Sadly, Katie Hobbs’ veto is a prime example of Democrats’ efforts to push state-sponsored atheism while robbing Arizona’s children of the opportunity to flourish with a healthy moral compass.
Hey, would signing a document swearing that you’re a legally chosen elector in a presidential election count as “bearing false witness”? We don’t think simply having a copy of the Commandments handy necessarily guarantees that “moral compass” thing, is all.
The other, even worse bill vetoed by Hobbs, Senate Bill 1628, was an attempt to declare transgender people unpersons in Arizona law, by eliminating any mention of gender in state laws and imposing a strict definition of “biological” sex that is fixed and invariable, thereby defining trans folks out of existence. It also would have banned trans people from using restrooms, locker rooms, domestic violence shelters, and sexual assault crisis centers that correspond with their gender identity, which by law they would no longer have.
Hobbs had already pledged that she would veto any legislation that discriminated against the LGBTQ+ community, and it was a no-brainer that she vetoed SB 1628. In her veto letter to the Senate president, she explained her decision about as tersely as possible:
Today, I vetoed Senate Bill 1628. As I have said time and again, I will not sign legislation that attacks Arizonans.
Hobbs very graciously did not add, “You bigoted shitheads.”
The Senate Republicans’ statement in response to the veto didn’t worry about common decency, because after all they insist that there’s no such thing as transgender people. Just for extra irony, they appealed to “science,” which is valuable only when it supports their prejudices. (No, not psychology, psychiatry, medicine, or any social science, those aren’t real either.) Senate Republicans:
With the radical Left attempting to force upon society the notion that science doesn’t matter, and biological males can be considered females if they ‘feel’ like they are, Katie Hobbs and Democrats at the Arizona State Legislature are showing their irresponsible disregard for the safety and well-being of women and girls in our state by killing the Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights.
Yes, of course the same Republican legislators who have now twice blocked repeal of Arizona’s terrible 1864 abortion ban called their trans discrimination bill a “women’s bill of rights.” No, it didn’t say anything about pay equity, either.
They said a lot more deliberately misgendering crap about the alleged threat of trans women and girls using women’s restrooms, but screw that, we’re not quoting it. One of the bill’s supporters also said it was very sad that they couldn’t ban trans women and girls from school sports, too, but as the Arizona Mirror points out, the Lege already passed a trans sports ban in 2022, which was signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R). That law is currently on hold while a lawsuit against it goes forward, and passing another sports ban wouldn’t change that for more than however many days it would take to add it to the suit.
In conclusion, Democrats are once more keeping terrible legislation from going forward, and the backlash to that awful 1861 abortion law just may give Arizona its first Democratic trifecta in ages this fall. Let’s hope so!
PREVIOUSLY!
[Arizona Mirror / AZ PM / Arizona Republic / Photo (cropped): Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons License 2.0
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"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. 'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom? 'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Cons don't seem to care about trans men using the men's restrooms , men's locker rooms, or participating in men's sports. All of their "concern" is for trans women using the women's restrooms, women's locker rooms or participating in women's sports.
Very interesting, but bigoted and perverted. (Apologies to Artie Johnson's German soldier on "Laugh In.")