By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Arizona’s veto-crazed left-wing Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs drew amazement when she even nixed a bill passed by a legislative supermajority to allow careful sales of home-prepared foods like the Latino favorite of tamales.
However, pro-abortion extremist Hobbs demonstrated the naivete and futility of Catholic bishops who don’t understand that they can’t play nice with a politician whose basic goal is to have as many defenseless infants as possible killed, even if they survive abortion. The bishops lauded two vetoes of gun-related bills.
Meanwhile, a number of ballots that still hadn’t been counted from Arizona’s 2022 general election encouraged the hope of Republican attorney-general nominee Abe Hamadeh that he might yet win the office that had been awarded to left-wing Democrat Kris Mayes by a margin of less than 300 votes, out of a total of more than 2.5 million cast.
Each of these two candidates received 49.9 percent of the vote.
This was an election where GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake also supposedly lost narrowly to Hobbs after the election machinery in populous Maricopa County inexplicably suffered major problems on Election Day itself, when GOP turnout was expected to be heavy. Lake has said she was the candidate actually elected governor, despite the elite’s animosity.
As of April18 Hobbs set a new record for number of vetoes by any Arizona governor, even surpassing left-wing Democrat “veto queen” Janet Napolitano nearly two decades ago.
Reporter Howard Fischer, of Capitol Media Services, wrote that back in 2005, Napolitano cast 58 vetoes during the course of a full legislative session, while Hobbs notched her 63rd nix on April 18, with weeks likely remaining for more vetoes in the current legislative gathering.
Both Napolitano and Hobbs, the favored candidates of the uniparty establishment here, confronted majority-Republican legislatures.
KFYI radio news (550 AM, Phoenix) meanwhile reported that Hobbs signed “more than 90” bills so far. Meaning that she vetoed about one-third of all bills sent to her. On April 12 KFYI talk host James T. Harris said many of the vetoed bills were bipartisan “or almost nonpartisan.”
They included bills to forbid cities from taxing groceries, to stop a person from erecting a makeshift shelter on a public right-of-way, and to increase the penalty for assaulting a woman that the attacker knows or has reason to know is pregnant.
Hobbs also applied her partisan slant to the vetoes, killing bills in favor of election integrity and one that would have forbidden “ranked choice” voting, a confusing system that is seen as often favoring Democrat candidates.
The liberal AZ Mirror website posted on April 18 that Arizona Senate Republicans said Hobbs’ vetoes showed her “weakness and lack of leadership.”
The AZ Mirror quoted the Republicans: “Despite the governor only winning the 2022 general election by less than a percentage point, Hobbs has so far chosen to alienate the remaining voters who also duly elected their Republican lawmakers to represent them on a variety of issues important to their lives and livelihoods.”
Conservative Republican political consultant Constantin Querard told The Wanderer on April 19 that “the volume of bills is normal” that reached the governor, instead of Republicans sending Hobbs an unusually large number of measures.
Liberal Democrat state Rep. Alma Hernandez was among many Arizonans shocked at Hobbs’ veto of the street-food bill, which Hernandez saw as a blow against Hispanics.
Hernandez tweeted, in part: “As a public-health professional, I am VERY disappointed to see that a bipartisan bill allowing Arizonans to make an honest living by selling things like tamales, tortillas, and sweets legally was vetoed by Gov.@katiehobbs. It makes no sense. People are NOT dying from street-food poisoning.
“This is personal,” Hernandez said. “Not only do many Hispanics depend on this to make a living but many fear being reported and fined. When my father was injured and could not work, my mother made cakes from home to ensure we could put gas and food on our table.”
Although Hobbs’ supporters in dominant left-wing media haven’t raised a serious ruckus against her veto spree or radical administration, she might be increasingly viewed by voters as an arrogant twerp venting her vengeance on them.
However, in an April 17 emailed news release, the Arizona Catholic Conference expressed bishops’ pleasure that Hobbs vetoed two gun-related measures.
The news release began: “The bishops of the Arizona Catholic Conference (ACC) are grateful that Gov. Katie Hobbs has recently vetoed problematic legislation relating to gun violence.” It ended that the vetoed bills “are not solutions to the root causes of gun violence which, unfortunately, continue to grow rapidly in our society.”
Without a trace of irony about Hobbs’ devotion to the culture of death and transgenderism, the bishops said: “We are living in a culture where acts of violence are becoming increasingly common. Much is needed to be done in order to change this culture where the importance of human life is too often diminished and mental health issues are not sufficiently addressed.”
The news release was signed by Phoenix Bishop John P. Dolan, Phoenix Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo A. Nevares, Tucson Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger, and Gallup, N.M., Bishop James S. Wall.
The Republican political consultant Querard told The Wanderer on April 18: “The Arizona Catholic Conference seems to skew left on a lot of policy matters outside of abortion, and even there they manage to avoid holding most pro-abortion politicians to account for their position.
“You’d love to think the Church would know to hold responsible those who actually commit violent, evil acts instead of blaming the gun, but that is just wishful thinking, I’m afraid,” Querard said.
Hobbs is such a radical extremist that the bishops needed to avoid touching her even with a 10-foot pole, but they chose to give her support that allows Hobbs to claim that even Catholic bishops support some of her vetoes — despite her attacks and vetoes on any and all direct pro-life measures.
This is the sort of failed strategy over the decades that allowed the Democrat Party to march ever-resolutely into the culture of death, while Catholic bishops who tried to be chummy were left to chatter from the sidelines.
Their impotence hurts the Democrats not at all.
On April 19 the Bearing Arms pro-Second Amendment blog posted a reaction under the headline, “Hobbs vetoes school safety measures, calls for gun control instead.”
Its story began: “Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs shot down two proposals aimed at improving student safety and protecting the rights of law-abiding residents on Tuesday [April 18], breaking out her veto pen and calling on the Republican-controlled legislature to start passing gun-control bills instead.
“HB 2332 would have set up a firearms safety-education program for students in grades 6-12, while SB 1331 would have allowed Arizonans with concealed-carry licenses to lawfully bring their firearms on campus,” the story said.
It added later: “The legislation specifically noted that the mandatory course wasn’t supposed to teach students how to safely or responsibly use a firearm, but rather to ‘teach simple, easy-to-remember steps so individuals who receive the training know what to do if they ever come across a firearm’.”
The Bearing Arms article also said: “The governor’s veto of SB 1331 is just as shameful. Right now, those with concealed-carry licenses are still forbidden from bringing their firearms on campus, even if they’re just sitting in the line of cars waiting to pick up their kids from school.
“That forces many concealed-carry holders to either not carry at all, or to pull their car over and needlessly expose their firearm to the public at large while they place it in the trunk of their vehicle to store it while they pick up or drop off their children,” it said.
Hernandez, the Democratic state representative, who is viewed as being on the rightward end of a very liberal caucus, also tweeted that Hobbs’ veto of the street-food, or “cottage,” bill “does nothing in the name of ‘health & safety.’ It goes against my community. It’s not a veto to be proud of, and I know I am not the only one who feels this way.
“I will continue to support those in my community who work hard and make cottage foods from home to get by, and so should everyone else,” she said.
Generally liberal columnist Laurie Roberts, at the state’s largest daily, The Arizona Republic, said legislators should override Hobbs’ veto after she turned the issue “into a hot tamale, vetoing a bill that had overwhelming support. It was her 63rd and probably most stunning veto of the session, given her repeated pleas for bipartisan legislation.”
KNXV television, Channel 15 ABC, did a sympathetic feature on a local mother and son who safely produced cottage food while the young man learned responsibility and customer service. However, the TV reporter said, even though the bill had passed with supermajorities, Democratic legislators may lack the stomach to override a governor of their own party.
Seeking A New Trial
Meanwhile, The Arizona Sun Times website posted an article on April 19 saying that oral arguments have been scheduled for May 16 as Republican Abe Hamadeh seeks a new trial regarding his narrow loss for state attorney general to Democrat Kris Mayes.
“Data from all Arizona counties shows that about 8,000 provisional ballots remain outstanding, AZ Free News reported, based on a collaborative analysis by Republican National Committee analysts, outside investigators, and Hamadeh’s legal team,” the article said. “Hamadeh won an average of 70 percent of votes cast by voters on Election Day, and Election Day votes were 2-to-1 Republican.
“While there were fewer voters casting ballots in Arizona for the November 2022 election compared to the November 2020 election, there were more provisional ballots cast and higher rejection rates last year than in 2020,” the article said, reporting what might be regarded as suspiciously high rejection rates of ballots cast by experienced voters who presumably would avoid making such errors.
The article ended by quoting Hamadeh: “This is not simply a case of voter error with these provisional ballots. The disenfranchisement is even bigger than what we’re arguing. We have more votes than Kris Mayes. It’s up to the courts to decide to count them.”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress