Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs released her Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget proposal which she describes as “a balanced appropriation that reduces overall spending while investing boldly in affordability, health & safety, and preserving our natural resources.”
Hobbs, a Democrat, noted on X that the budget includes “millions to support free, fair & secure elections ahead of 2024” — an important move in a state where election integrity has been continually (though largely unsuccessfully) challenged by Republicans in the courts.
The FY 2025 Executive Budget proposal’s emphasis on “health and safety” includes another item ranking high on the Governor’s agenda: protecting reproductive rights. Hobbs wrote: “I refuse to back down in the face of those who want to criminalize doctors and outlaw abortion. As long as I am governor, it is not happening on my watch.”
I refuse to back down in the face of those who want to criminalize doctors and outlaw abortion. As long as I am governor, it is not happening on my watch.
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) January 16, 2024
Abortion is a big subject in Arizona politically with the 2024 elections imminent. Hobbs’s defeated Republican opponent in the 2022 gubernatorial election, MAGA loyalist Kari Lake, is currently running for U.S. Senate in the 2024 election against Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and incumbent Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema (if Sinema decides to run for re-election).
Gallego’s campaign in the battleground state is reminding voters that when she was running for governor, Lake called abortion the “ultimate sin” and supported the state’s 1864 law which bans nearly all abortions.
Trump said overturning Roe v Wade was a “miracle.” @KariLake called an abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest a “great law.”
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) January 11, 2024
This is who they are. They will ban abortion. No exceptions. pic.twitter.com/mxchsLHnjS
[Note: In October, when Lake announced her run for Senate, she said that she opposed a national abortion ban and “just like President Trump, I believe this issue of abortion should be left to the states.” When asked if he would sign a federal ban on abortions, Trump, who has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade (three of his appointed SCOTUS justices voted for the decision), said: “It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t frankly care.”]
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