Marco Lopez
By Nick Phillips | Arizona Capitol Times
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Marco Lopez is trying to seize an opportunity opened up by Katie Hobbs’ missteps in responding to a multimillion-dollar discrimination verdict.
The November 10 verdict found that Talonya Adams, a Black Democratic Senate aide, suffered discrimination and then retaliation when she complained about unequal pay at the Senate, where Hobbs was then the Democratic leader. The case dragged out over years and now it’s raising fresh questions about the race for the Democratic nomination for governor.
“It’s only taken (Katie Hobbs) six years, two jury verdicts and four weeks of chaos to get to a point where she makes a scripted video, so that’s not acceptable,” Lopez said December 9.
Lopez is a former mayor of Nogales and was a policy adviser to then-Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Ian Danley, a Democratic consultant and the manager of David Garcia’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018, said the case has made the situation look more uncertain in the primary.
