Governor: Commission in need of ‘clean start’

All members dismissed from Ariz.-Mexico group

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs’ recent dismissal of the entire commission that handles trade and economic relationships with Mexico sent ripples of uncertainty, and shock, through business and political circles.

More than a week later, Hobbs is explaining her decision in more detail, addressing for the first time whether her mass-axing of all 31 of the ArizonaMexico Commission’s board members would result in a priority shift away from trade and business.

“I don’t know that we necessarily want to change the goals,” Hobbs said Tuesday.

“It’s a way to have sort of a clean start and reappoint the members that we want to reappoint,” she added when asked why her administration abruptly fired the whole board via a Friday afternoon email Feb. 17.

Hobbs has the authority to appoint hundreds of people who sit on more than 200 boards and commissions, and doing so is one of the handful of ways she can make her mark as Arizona’s first Democratic governor in 14 years — without needing the approval of the adversarial Republican-majority Legislature.

While many members of those bodies have fixed terms, others serve at the whim of the governor, meaning Hobbs has a chance to put allies in place and oust those aligned with former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. The goals of the state’s boards and commissions run the gamut from tackling child safety to offering homeland security advice to tracking and combating human trafficking, among many others.

More overhauls are to come, according to Hobbs, whose administration is reviewing where she has the au

thority to change membership.

Troubled relations with Mexico?

In defending the “clean start” at the Arizona-Mexico Commission, Hobbs hinted at a fractured relationship between the past administration and Mexican leaders.

“I’ve had really encouraging meetings with leadership in Mexico — with the Mexican ambassador, the governor of Sonora, the president of Mexico now — and they’re very focused on how we can rebuild a relationship that they don’t feel like they’ve had in the last couple years,” Hobbs said. “And certainly the Arizona-Mexico Commission is an important part of that.”

Ducey famously worked closely with the previous governor of Sonora, Claudia Pavlovich, and the pro-business governor often touted the work of the Arizona-Mexico Commission among his successes. Pavlovich’s successor, Gov. Alfonso Durazo, was sworn into office in September 2021.

“As good neighbors we respect the decision made by Gov. Hobbs,” David Figueroa Ortega, the Sonora state government representative in Arizona, said in an email. Asked about any past tensions, he didn’t answer directly.

“In the government of Sonora we are focused on the challenges ahead and ready to work with the new members that will be appointed in the ArizonaMexico Commission in a positive and constructive way to achieve the common goals we have in both states,” he wrote.

Confusion about changes

Any need to “rebuild” a relationship with Mexican leaders came as news to Russell Jones, a former state representative from Yuma who served on the commission for nearly four decades.

“I was kind of surprised by that a bit, maybe something was lost in translation, because my understanding is we’ve had a pretty amiable relationship with the new governor of Sonora through the committee,” he said.

Hobbs’ office invited the 31 members of the commission to apply for their old positions if they wanted to continue their service, and a spokesperson said Wednesday that 13 have done so. While Hobbs’ aides previously raised concern about several appointments to the commission made by Ducey that seemed politically driven, Hobbs said this week that her office took the action to reduce the number of people who serve on multiple boards. She said she wants to allow more Arizonans to serve and work with her administration.

The governor hopes to have the new board set by the end of March, according to Hobbs spokesperson Josselyn Berry.

Jones, whose family business is freight logistics at the border, has reapplied to continue his post, saying he took Hobbs’ invitation at face value. While he knows Hobbs was within her authority to revamp the commission, he said he hoped she would do so with a goal of retaining institutional knowledge and existing relationships.

Real estate developer and former candidate for governor Karrin Taylor Robson, who was appointed to the commission by Ducey in November, said she likely would not reapply given other commitments. Rumored as a candidate for U.S. Senate next year, Taylor Robson said, “You never say never, but the job I wanted is currently held by Gov. Hobbs.”

One former member not sure if he will reapply is Kirk Adams, a Republican who also has served as Arizona House speaker and chief of staff to Ducey. Adams praised the role of the commission but said he wanted to know more about any ideological changes Hobbs would make to it.

Though Berry previously said Hobbs’ decision to fire all members of the commission was not unprecedented, Adams noted Ducey didn’t take the same approach.

“I think what was surprising was the whitewashing of the commission,” Adams said, noting he expected Hobbs to make some changes once she took over the Governor’s Office. “I don’t know if it’s been done like that before. We didn’t do it like that.”

Asked to provide examples of prior governors taking similar sweeping actions, Berry pointed to Ducey’s criticism of the board at Hacienda HealthCare after a scandal in which an incapacitated woman was raped and became pregnant. That nonprofit board was not under Ducey’s control. Berry also named about two dozen boards, task forces and commissions Ducey eliminated, some of which were already defunct and were part of the Republican governor’s eightyear effort to shrink the size of government.

She did not provide an example of a prior governor firing an entire board at one time.

How commission has done work

The Arizona-Mexico Commission was created under a prior name by former Republican Arizona Gov. Paul J. Fannin and former Sonora Gov. Alvaro Obregon in 1959. It was reorganized to its current form in 1972.

Its goal is to foster business and trade ties between Arizona and Mexico, but former members say the connections made there have gone beyond to solve public safety and other issues. Its members helped facilitate a program to train Mexican commercial truck drivers on safety regulations they have to follow when bringing goods to Arizona, as one example.

The commission is led by the board, on which the governor serves, and includes several committees filled with representatives of the Arizona and Mexican government as well as private interests from both countries. The committees address issues like education, the environment, water, health, tourism and more.

The firing of the commission came the same day Hobbs traveled on her first international trip as governor to Nogales, Sonora, to meet with Durazo, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and others. The approximately three-hour trip came as a surprise, with no prior notice to reporters or the public that Hobbs would leave the state.

That information was held back because of security concerns, Hobbs said.

Hobbs’ office sent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ aides a letter at 2:01 p.m. on Feb. 17 notifying them she would be out of Arizona from approximately 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. that day, leaving Fontes to act as governor during that window, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Arizona Republic.

According to the Arizona Constitution, the secretary of the state fills in when the governor is out of state, or at least that will happen until 2026 when a ballot measure approved by voters takes effect and delegates that task to a newly created lieutenant governor.

That temporary power shift routinely happens with little fanfare; Hobbs frequently stood in for Ducey when he traveled and while she was secretary of state from 2019 to Jan. 1 of this year.