KJZZ Friday NewsCap: Hobbs' speech tried to find common ground with Republicans
Download mp3 (31.62 MB)KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Matthew Benson of the public relations firm Veridus and attorney and former congressional staffer Roy Herrera joined The Show this week to talk about Gov. Katie Hobbs’ State of the State speech, legislative Republicans’ response to it and more.
Conversation highlights
Matt, as somebody who has worked on and written states of the state speech with Gov. Jan Brewer, what do you think Gov. Katie Hobbs?
MATT BENSON: I thought it was a solid speech. You know, that's a difficult environment to walk into. Very narrowly divided House and Senate, so much political polarization. She tried, and I think with some success, tried to emphasize the need for the state to come together in a bipartisan way.
I thought it was really interesting — and this differs from the speech she gave a year ago. She really came straight out of the chute talking about the border and going after the Biden administration, not by name but referring to the federal government repeatedly in its failure to secure the border and the cost that that has created for the state of Arizona. So I thought it was a different approach that she took this year.
She still had plenty of red meat in there for progressives on, you know, going after ESAs, for example, talking about abortion access. But I thought it was an interesting speech, and I think in some ways she was trying to find common ground with Republicans because ultimately she's gonna need a certain number of Republicans to get anything done this session.
Roy, bipartisanship was certainly something that she talked about in this speech. What did you make of it, on the overall theme here?
ROY HERRERA: Well, I agree with Matt. I think it was a speech that was designed and did appeal to a very wide audience. I mean, I think it was an effort from governor to try to forge some bipartisan compromise on a number of issues. And I think there were a number of issues in the speech itself that, you know, that should, you know, receive some bipartisan compromise. I mean, when she talked about things like updating our groundwater, that policy haven't been updated in 40 years. When she talks about, you know, the sober-living homes crisis and providing, you know, some additional regulations and licensing to try to stamp out fraud and waste in that area. Even things like, you know, housing affordability and sort of talking about providing some help for home buying for people that need it.
There's some areas there, I think where, where there should be some compromise. But then of course, you do have some issues like — and I'm well aware that Republicans say the ES a proposal is dead on arrival. But something like ESAs, which is a common sense proposal that she's going to be pushing this yea. And if it's not successful, certainly pushing at the ballot this November.
What did you make of the fact that she came out very early on in the speech and for quite a while talking specifically about the border?
HERRERA: Well, she's been talking about the border now for, for, you know, for a while. I mean, certainly since Lukeville and everything that happened there. And it's clear, I mean, Sen. Kelly, Sen, Sinema, Gov. Hobbs, I mean, all the top elected officials in Arizona are very concerned about sort of the unprecedented situation at the border and trying to get additional resources here. Obviously, Congress is working on that right now, but it doesn't surprise me at all.
And, of course, that's another area where I would assume there'd be a lot of bipartisan agreement with Republicans on addressing that issue.
So Matt, when you think about some of the issues that you talked about, Roy mentioned some of the things like water and housing, affordability and sober living homes. Do you anticipate agreement between Republicans and Democrats or is it maybe too soon to say here?
BENSON: I think that there will be some areas of agreement, but they will be few and far between. And that's just, that's just the reality of our current political climate in the state and nationally. There aren't a lot of areas of agreement. This is an election year and, you know, a lot of these legislators will face primaries, whether from their left or their right, depending on their party. And so there's not a lot of political incentive to come together and work across the aisle.
