Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) continues to up the record for most vetoes used by an Arizona governor. She vetoed five Republican bills, including one regarding a transgender bathroom use policy, Thursday.
Hobbs’s new record is nearly double that of the previous record. It was set by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who used 58 vetoes while dealing with a Republican majority in the legislature, the Arizona Mirror reported. Perhaps the most contentious bill Hobbs used her veto for on Thursday was Senate Bill 1040, called the “Arizona Accommodations for All Children Act.” The bill would prevent transgender students from using the bathrooms or sleeping quarters opposite of their biological sex, but it also instructed schools to provide those students with “a reasonable accommodation.”
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“S.B. 1040 is yet another discriminatory act against LGBTQ+ youth passed by the majority at the state legislature,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter to Senate President Warren Petersen.
Republicans protested her veto.
“Women and young girls deserve privacy and their own protected bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms where they can have such privacy and are safe from the risk of sexual harassment or sexual violence,” the bill’s sponsor, State Sen. John Kavanagh (R) said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, Democrat Legislators and Governor Hobbs are catering to an extremist culture by pushing ‘gender neutrality’ as a means to win political points from their liberal base while stealing dignity away from women and girls in the process.”
Three of the bills Hobbs vetoed were election integrity-related — she argued that they were either pointless, or too logistically challenging.
“Arizonans are tired of the Legislature meddling with Arizona’s elections,” Hobbs wrote in a veto letter for one of the bills.
She also vetoed Senate Bill 1243, which would have simplified the tax process for funds donated to schools that use most of their funding for scholarships.
“Protecting taxpayer dollars and ensuring our state’s fiscal strength is a top priority and I am committed to making informed decisions that work for all Arizonans,” Hobbs wrote.
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But the bill’s sponsor, State Sen. J.D. Mesnard (R), argued in February that the bill was much more innocuous.
“It’s literally just trying to reduce paperwork,” he said.
