By Caitlin Sievers | AZ Mirror
The Republican gatekeeper standing in the way of the Democratic governor’s nominees to head state departments said this week that those directors need to have a “neutral, fair” approach to regulation.
But Sen. Jake Hoffman is using the committee to exact political vengeance on Gov. Katie Hobbs by unfairly targeting her nominees, said Christian Slater, the governor’s chief spokesman. He called Hoffman a “liar and a clown” who is “engaged in a partisan witch hunt.”
And while Hoffman may demand neutrality and fairness from Hobbs’ picks to head state agencies, the same can’t be said of the people who he summoned to testify on April 10 when the Senate Director Nominations Committee met to consider Hobbs’ nominee to lead the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions.
A long line of far-right local Republican Party leaders blasted Barbara Richardson for a supposed anti-business stance and for participating in National Association of Insurance Commissioners special committees on diversity, equity and inclusion and climate resiliency.
In a March 27 press statement, Hoffman said that “qualified candidates should be free from any partisan political agenda” and accused Richardson of having a history of “radical leftist ideologies.”
Nearly all of the more than a dozen people who asked the committee not to recommend Richardson be confirmed as director were Republican Party activists or their associates. Some of the speakers disclosed their political affiliations, but several did not.
