Katie Hobbs defeats election denier Kari Lake
By Stacey Barchenger || Arizona Republic
Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs wants to work across the aisle to solve the state’s pressing issues, but there’s one issue the Democrat won’t compromise on: access to abortion.
Hobbs has said she would seek to overturn the state’s near-total ban on abortion that dates to 1864, and in an interview with The Arizona Republic on Wednesday suggested she could take aim at a law enacted this year that prohibits most abortions after 15 weeks.
“I wasn’t supportive of it when it passed, it’s too restrictive,” she said, noting it has no exceptions for rape or incest beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy. “The majority of Arizonans support safe, legal abortion, and we need to roll back many of the restrictions that are in place now.”
Hobbs, 52, spoke to The Republic two days after she won the election to become Arizona’s 24th governor. She defeated Republican challenger Kari Lake, a former television news anchor, and flipped the Governor’s Office to Democratic control for the first time since 2009 and just the second time since 1991.
Arizona’s 5th female governor:Katie Hobbs defeats election denier Kari Lake
She discussed her approach to leading the Grand Canyon State and her plan to work with a Legislature that will likely have a more conservative bent than any in recent history, signaling she will use her unilateral power as the state’s chief executive carefully — but when she believes it’s necessary.
Before she officially becomes governor, Hobbs has a prominent task before her as secretary of state, the top election official.
She said she will certify her own election win in December, despite calls from Lake and others to step aside because of the appearance of a conflict of interest if she approved her own victory.
“Certifying the election is part of the job the voters elected me to do and it is simply a ministerial task,” Hobbs said. “I will sign off along with the governor, the attorney general and the chief justice of the Supreme Court.”
Several Republican secretaries of state have certified their own reelections in recent decades, Hobbs noted. And the duty of the secretary of state is, essentially, just math: To take the certified results from each county, compile them, and sign off on the statewide tallies.
Two years ago, Hobbs certified the state’s election of President Joe Biden, alongside Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, with whom she has worked at arm’s length as secretary of state and while she was the Democratic party leader in the Legislature. On Tuesday morning, after her victory, Ducey called to indicate he “is on board to help us make sure this is the smoothest transition possible,” Hobbs said.
“He was very gracious and congratulatory and just wants to make sure that we work effectively together during this transition period,” Hobbs said. Her first two days as governor-elect were a whirlwind of planning who will lead her transition into office.
Before taking the oath in early January, Hobbs must build a team to comprise her cabinet. Within days of being sworn in, she will propose a spending plan to the Arizona Legislature — her ideas for how to allocate the state’s roughly $15 billion budget and over $2 billion surplus — as the new session gets underway.
