Hobbs scandals revisited

The 2026 legislative session is underway at the Capitol, and based on their tenor, it seems that Republicans’ primary aim this year is to make Gov. Katie Hobbs look bad and spoil her reelection bid.

At a Freedom Caucus press conference in a Senate conference room on Monday, Hobbs — not the caucus’ policy agenda — was the focus.

Republican lawmakers and friendly candidates in this year’s cycle were flanked by signs calling Hobbs corrupt and declaring her “America’s most scandal plagued governor.” (Perhaps the sign was printed well before Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz began getting bashed by the GOP over a child care fraud scandal unfolding in his state.)

Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, the Freedom Caucus’ chair, called concerns over Hobbs’ alleged corruption “the most important conversation” taking place in Arizona, adding that the Capitol’s GOP lawmakers will be focusing on it “day in and day out.”

It’s no surprise that Republicans, and especially the MAGA crowd, want badly to defeat Hobbs and take back control of the executive branch.

Hobbs has vetoed a staggering 390 bills in her first three years as governor — many of which were passed with only Republican votes.

Reading through the bills she swatted in the last session is a case study for understanding what might kind of laws might be enacted if the GOP were to hold on to both chambers of the Legislature and win the race for governor. Those include facilitating the transfer of public school property to private schools, investing state retirement funds in Bitcoin and banning state money from going to schools that teach anything about diversity.

But while the rhetoric about Hobbs being the most corrupt governor in the country might be political grandstanding, her tenure has not been free of scandals.

As the 2026 race for governor heats up and the legislative session begins, here’s a measured rundown of the actual scandals that have troubled Hobbs — without all the partisan bluster.

Almost immediately after taking office, Hobbs caught flack for accepting $1.5 million in donations from corporations and special interests to fund her inauguration day festivities — despite the event only costing $207,000 to produce.

Not long after that, the Arizona Republic reported that Hobbs didn’t disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations that her campaign and the Arizona Democratic Party received during that time, which raised even more questions.

The biggest donor was Arizona Public Service, the state's largest electric utility, which donated $250,000 — enough to singlehandedly fund the festivities. Taking money from APS is something of a scandal in progressive circles, as several Democrats have pledged to turn down donations from the utility, which has a history of throwing dark money around and has recently raised electricity rates at a precipitous rate.

Another one of the largest hauls — $100,000 — came from Sunshine Residential Homes, a publicly funded organization that provides shelter and care for children who are removed from their homes by the Department of Child Safety. A few years later, this donation ignited even more controversy.

In addition to its inaugural fund donation, Sunshine ultimately donated another $300,000 to Hobbs and other Democrats.

The same year that Hobbs became governor and received the large donation from Sunshine Residential, the organization got a 30% funding increase from the state to the tune of about $4 million a year. Thanks to more investigative work by the Republic, more information was uncovered about the favorable new contract, which was approved by then-director of DCS David Lujan after Sunshine gave the state an ultimatum demanding more pay.

In a May 2023 letter, Sunshine CEO Simon Kottoor told DCS that the company was in the red by about $4.5 million and needed more funding to keep providing beds for children who ended up in the agency’s custody.

The concerning revelations prompted “pay-to-play” accusations from Republicans. As recently as Monday, Hoffman took credit on behalf of his party for “exposing” Hobbs, despite the fact that journalists actually put in the work.

The Hobbs administration was troubled again in the fall of 2024 when the Agenda broke the story that the state’s Office of Tourism spent a whopping $700,000 on a new logo for the state that looks like this:

We’ll leave it to our readers to judge whether that government spending, which came from pandemic relief funds, was worth it.

Hoffman opined Monday that “it looks like crap.”

But beyond a question of artistic value, the most concerning aspect of "Logogate" was that the tourism office’s director, Lisa Urias, paid graphic designer Kevin Coochwytewa $27,500 to create the logo in tandem with an outside company. Coochwytewa is the brother of the CEO of Urias Communications, a marketing company owned by the then-director.

Urias resigned the day after we published the story, though she denied allegations that her firm benefitted from her position as tourism director.

Hoffman also pounced on Hobbs for hiring Dana Allmond — a Marana Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for the House in 2022 — and paying her $170,000 annually to work at the Department of Economic Security.

While the governor had previously nominated Allmond to run the Department of Veterans’ Services, she eventually withdrew the nomination after Hoffman and other Republicans blocked her. In February, the Hobbs administration struck up a contract with Allmond and her assistant, who is paid $114,000.

Both contracts were renewed in July, just as DES announced that it would have to lay off 5% of its regular staff as grants from the federal government shrunk thanks to the Trump administration.

Hoffman has been spinning the employment of Allmond and her assistant, whose positions were created for them, as a “$600,000 handout of taxpayer money.” That criticism is a stretch at this point since Republicans haven’t proved what they are implying: that Allmond and her assistant are doing nothing. In addition, that $600,000 figure is based on a two-year total.