Katie Hobbs Lays Out Her Vision For Arizona in First Interview as Governor-Elect
PHOENIX – After officially winning the election for governor, Katie Hobbs appeared on Arizona’s Family with Dennis Welch in her first interview as Governor-Elect where she laid out her priorities and vision for Arizona. Hobbs will be the 5th female governor in Arizona history and the 24th governor of Arizona. Hobbs celebrated her victory on Tuesday at a rally filled with supporters, friends, and family. “Arizonans chose solving our problems over conspiracy theories. We chose sanity over chaos. And we chose unity over division. We chose a better Arizona,” Hobbs declared after an emotional introduction from her daughter.
During the Arizona’s Family interview, Hobbs expanded on the issues she made a priority during her campaign, including defending reproductive rights, protecting the freedom to vote, lowering costs, securing our border, improving schools, and ensuring Arizona has water for generations to come.
See below for key excerpts, or watch the full interview here.
On her governing philosophy: “I’m running to be governor for all of Arizona. I know we have a lot of Republican support in this race and Arizonans are facing multiple challenges right now. They’re not Democrat or Republican challenges and they’re issues like affordability, protecting our fundamental freedoms that need bipartisan solutions, and we need to bring people together and I’m ready to start doing that.”
On protecting reproductive freedoms: “The majority of Arizonans support access to safe, legal abortion and we’ve already seen instances, even in this 15 week ban, that has impacted people’s ability to get the health care they need. I’m certainly willing to talk to legislators about how we can work to ensure Arizonans have access to the healthcare that they need, but we also have the tool of initiative and this might be something that needs to be taken to the voters.”
On investing in Arizona schools: “The most critical issue right now is suspending the Aggregate Expenditure Limit, which is handcuffing schools right now. They’re not going to be able to budget. We’re going to see teacher layoffs if the legislature doesn’t repeal that, but we need to look at a permanent repeal because this is a broken record that keeps playing every year and it’s holding us back from investing. It’s top of the agenda.”
On Kari Lake not yet conceding the race: “The election’s over and I’m ready to get to work for Arizonans.”