By Howard Fischer || Capitol Media Services
January 9, 2023
The 2023 legislative session is starting today with perhaps the worst-kept political secret: Republican lawmakers are going to send bills to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs even knowing ahead of time she will veto them.
The 2023 legislative session gets started today with perhaps the worst-kept political secret: Republican lawmakers are going to send bills to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs even knowing ahead of time she will veto them.
The frank admission by the top GOP lawmakers in both chambers came Friday as they and their Democratic counterparts gave a brief overview of the upcoming session at a luncheon hosted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“We want to try to work with the governor,” said incoming Senate President Warren Petersen. And the Gilbert Republican said he had set a record several years ago as the lawmaker who got the highest percentage of his bills signed by the governor.
Petersen said every lawmaker has the same goal.
“How you have a high percentage of bills passed is you look at the landscape, you look at the legislators, you look at the chairs (of the committees through which the bills have to pass),” he said. And that calculus, Petersen said, includes the governor.
