Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) discussed the political climate in Arizona in a recent interview with Cactus Politics, saying Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) is mainly responsible for it.
Specifically, Rep. Biggs suggested that tension naturally arises when Gov. Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes are Democrats while most of Arizona's voters, and subsequently most of the state legislature, are Republicans.
Rep. Biggs cited Hobbs's apparent laxity on border enforcement, which was in line with that of the Biden Administration, her veto of various election integrity bills, and her anti-school choice position.
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As a result, he said, "there is a lot to fix."
CACTUS POLITICS: You were Senate President of the Arizona legislature. Considering your experience here, what do you make of the climate in Arizona, as far as the political climate now, obviously, if there's a Democrat governor, what do you make as far as how it's being managed, the whole state, considering you were State Senate President?
BIGGS: Well, I mean, the problem that you have is everything from Governor Hobbs coming in, and almost immediately she got rid of some, like the border security task force that was within the Department of Public Safety, and she said she basically bought into the Biden "There's no border problem. We're going to leave it open." So we were getting flooded, just absolutely flooded. So you have all the criminality that goes with it, because, no matter how good some of the people are in the big groups that are coming in, you're gonna have bad people too. So that was a problem.
We have an election integrity or trust in election issue, not just in Arizona, throughout the country, but the legislature put together a really good bill on how to deal with that. She vetoes that. She's attacked school choice in Arizona. Arizona is a leader in the nation of school choice, and a lot of people really love it. It doesn't matter what your demographic is. Doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. You just want the best education for your kid. School Choice provides that, and she's attacked that, you know.
So there's a whole series of issues—the economy. Houses are becoming more and more unaffordable. I cannot believe the prices in Arizona for housing to buy a single-family home, in many respects, it rivals California. California prices people out, so does Arizona. So we've got to fix that too. There's a lot to fix.
And the crazy thing is, you've got a Republican legislature, the Corporation Commission; Maricopa County is Republican, all of the supervisors. You've got the Supervisor of Elections through Justin Heap. So you have got all these people that are Republicans at the very top of your state. You have got two Democratic senators. They have a Democratic governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State. So the top of your state is not reflective of the direction of the rest of the state.
CACTUS POLITICS: So they don't really represent Arizonans as a whole, right?
BIGGS: I mean, I think they speak to the harder left. I mean, Katie Hobbs does; Kris Mayes, the Attorney General, is trying to out-left her. That's what we have.
