When Gov. Katie Hobbs brought the veto hammer down this month on several pieces of water legislation, Republican lawmakers from Southern Arizona bore the brunt of her rejections.
The vetoed bills cover some familiar territory, namely groundwater and water permitting for subdivisions. Rep. Gail Griffin, a Cochise County Republican and chair of the House Natural Resources, Energy and Water committee — and one of the Legislature’s most prolific bill-writers — suffered most of the vetoes, with eight of her bills falling to Hobbs’ pen so far this session.
But it is Hobbs’ veto of House Bill 2167, sponsored by Benson House Republican Lupe Diaz, that is perhaps the most politically significant.
That bill is one of several this session intended to limit the ability of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, to use nuisance laws to curtail groundwater pumping in Southern Arizona.
Hobbs’ rejection of the water legislation came alongside her announcement that she would veto almost all bills that come to her desk until Republican legislative leaders present the public with a budget proposal.
At the center of the dispute is the potential renewal of the K-12 funding measure Proposition 123, which expired last year. Hobbs and legislative Democrats want to give the voters a chance to renew the measure, but Republicans have refused to consider that possibility in budget talks, Hobbs’ office says. (Our sister newsletter, the Arizona Agenda, has the backstory on that legislative quagmire.)
Even without the official moratorium, many of these bills were already likely to face vetoes.
Hobbs and her Democratic allies in the Legislature have been at odds with the Republican majority on water policy for years, especially when it comes to groundwater reform. Successive sessions have brought some compromises — namely last year’s ag-to-urban water transfer legislation — but at the expense of dozens of vetoed bills from Griffin and others.
This year, despite the unified front that lawmakers and the governor have put up in Colorado River negotiations, it’s not looking much different. Here’s a brief overview of the water legislation that Hobbs has quashed this session.
The Tony Soprano of water
HB2167 — sponsored by Diaz, the Republican from Benson who’s also the chair of the Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs committee — is one of several bills responding to Mayes’ use of nuisance laws to crack down on Fondomonte, a Saudi Arabian firm pumping groundwater to grow alfalfa for export in La Paz County.
Mayes’ theory, largely untested in court, is that excessive groundwater pumping that dries up area wells and causes land subsidence in nearby communities violates the state’s public nuisance law. And without statewide groundwater regulations, she says that nuisance law is her best tool for going after bad actors.
Mayes’ action against Fondomonte is tied up in court, even after the state established an active management area — a designation that strictly regulates groundwater pumping — in the Ranegras Plain basin.
But she’s used the same law to go after other alleged violators, like Riverview LLP, a Minnesota company that operates dairies in the Willcox basin. Under threat of litigation, Riverview and the state reached a settlement in January that provides for the reduction of groundwater pumping and $11 million in assistance to local residents.
These actions have led some Republican critics to label Mayes a “bully.”
“Tony Soprano couldn’t have done a better job – he’d be envious of what is literally a mafia-class shakedown of a private law-abiding company by a bully that abuses her office,” Cochise County Board of Supervisors chair and former Republican lawmaker Frank Antenori wrote in a January op-ed.
HB2168 would require the attorney general to get permission from a local county board of supervisors before bringing a nuisance action against an entity in that county. It awaits a third reading in the Senate.
The other two would hold the attorney general liable and assess damages against her if she brings a nuisance complaint that a court finds invalid and if she “knew or should have known” that the action lacked a legal basis.
"People are not trusting government today," Diaz said during a committee hearing in February. "This will help to be able to bring some accountability and some comfort to those that may be feeling like Big Brother is coming against them.”
A bit of Arizona’s irrigated farm land, as seen in an announcement from the governor about Fondomonte.
While HB2169 awaits further action in the House, HB2167 made it to the governor’s desk earlier this month following a series of party-line votes. But it made it no further.
In an April 13 veto letter, Hobbs wrote that she would not “curtail a tool that is used to protect Arizonans from bad actors.”
Whose water is it, anyway?
HB2026, sponsored by Griffin, directs the state Department of Water Resources to limit the scope of its review when issuing certificates of assured water supply to new subdivisions.
Under the state’s certificate program — part of its broader, oft-fought over assured water supply program — subdivision developers must demonstrate a 100-year, continuously available water supply.
HB2026 directs ADWR to only consider the availability of water in the source proposed for use by applicants when making that determination, even if that water is distributed through a system that “commingles” multiple water supplies, like effluent, groundwater and surface water.
But once water is in a system, there’s really no way to distinguish one molecule from the next, David Fernandez, a legislative liaison with ADWR, told lawmakers last month. So limiting an assessment of availability to just one source of water doesn’t provide a full picture, when a development might also be served by groundwater supplies. And a dried-up aquifer impacts everyone, not just a specific development.
Here’s what water commingling looks like.
Officially, ADWR is neutral. But Fernandez said the agency is concerned that the bill would require it to accept certificate applications that list a water source but ignore “the reality where everything is mixed together.”
“Specifically,” he said, “providers can use accounting to say that their renewable sources are serving only these particular developments, but there is groundwater in the system, so how do you make sure?”
In her veto letter, Hobbs wrote that the bill would allow for “’creative’ water accounting that could lead to more groundwater overpumping.”
She also wrote that it is “disappointing” that lawmakers would introduce a bill substantially similar to one she vetoed in 2024.
Undercutting the AMA
HB2031, sponsored by Griffin, would extend the window for people in the newly created Willcox Active Management Area to apply for grandfathered water rights. The AMA designation otherwise prohibits the irrigation of new acreage and restricts groundwater pumping.
In her veto letter, Hobbs called the bill one of several repeated attempts to “delay and obstruct real groundwater protections.”
Rounding out the list of water bills that Hobbs vetoed:
HB2055 (brackish groundwater recovery program), sponsored by Griffin
Hobbs’ comments: The bill diverts funding that could be used for other water augmentation projects to “speculative groundwater extraction proposals” that won’t meaningfully address the state’s water woes.
HB2102 (domestic water improvement districts; hauling) and HB2103 (water improvements program; water hauling), both sponsored by Griffin
Hobbs’ comments: “Making statutory tweaks to emphasize water hauling as the solution to Arizona’s water challenges is an insult to rural communities that are fighting for meaningful reform to secure their water for future generations.”
HB2985 (CAP water; state land; allocation), sponsored by Griffin
Hobbs’ comments: “The Arizona State Land Department already has a process for the allocation of Central Arizona Project water…”
It looks like Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos made a serious mistake in sending a lawyer to answer questions for him on Tuesday before the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
In his formal response to questions posed by the Supervisors on Tuesday, Nanos’ attorney didn’t include a affidavit signed by Nanos.
This is more than a clerical error.
Without it, the county supervisors have no assurances that Nanos was telling the truth when it came to answering their questions about suspending his political rival, whether he lied on job application roughly 40 years ago and PCSD’s relationship with immigration officials.
Without the affidavit — which had to submitted on Tuesday — the supervisors will have to decide among themselves what to do next.
It is pretty clear that he didn’t comply with the territorial-era law, which is only five sentences long and requires reports to the supervisors be made under oath.
As of Wednesday night, neither Nanos or his attorney had submitted an affidavit. That doesn’t mean he won’t soon.
Property wars: Just like Phoenix officials did a week ago, the Pima County Attorney’s Office says the county ordinance that blocks federal immigration agents from using county property is legal, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. GOP state lawmakers asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to investigate whether the county ordinance (as well as the one in Phoenix and another in Tucson) violated a state law that blocks local governments from interfering with federal immigration agencies. Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Samuel Brown said Pima County’s ordinance "describes locally directed purposes which in no way seek to regulate the federal government.”
Way to go, bro: A week after claiming our sister newsletter, the Arizona Agenda, was pushing innuendo about Sen. Ruben Gallego, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller quotes the ever-reliable Kari Lake saying Gallego is a “true scumbag” and agreed with Lake that Gallego “does have skeletons.” Steller’s read on the situation is that the key to understanding Gallego is to view him as a “bro” who is trying to appeal to other “bros.”
“When you put these pieces together, what you get is not necessarily the picture of a political savant who figured out how to attract Latino voters, nor of anything like a sexual predator,” Steller writes. “You see instead a guy who indulges stereotypical male tastes — trucks, hot women, crypto — and would therefore not be the type to notice anything wrong with his friend Swalwell.”
Better than expected: The number of homeless individuals living on the streets in Pima County dropped slightly this year, the Sentinel’s Mia Kortright writes. A count performed by the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness found 2,130 people did not have stable housing, down by 88 from the 2025 count. The figure was encouraging for homeless advocates who were concerned that state funding cuts and fewer beds in local shelters would set a new record for the annual "Point-in-Time” count.
Pickle-pocalypse: Pickleball players weren’t happy with the Tucson City Council’s proposal to end free play at Udall Park, and they showed up at City Hall to make their point clear, Lindsey Dean reports for KGUN. The protesters said the city is trying to turn pickleball courts into a “toll road” that would make it harder for the community of players, which they say includes people of all ages, to gather and socialize. A final decision on the proposed fees is expected in June.
Attention, pickleball players! If you subscribe to the Agenda, we’ll let you know how this all shakes out at City Hall.
Super double top secret: U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani is touting the huge economic benefits of a new mission to Fort Huachuca, but he won’t say what that mission is. That has left local residents somewhat baffled, but still hopeful, as the Herald/Review reported this week. In a video Ciscomani posted on his Twitter account on Wednesday, he says it’s a matter of national security, “so we need to be very careful about what we share at this moment.”
Debates season is right around the corner!
As we prepare to grill the candidates as part of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission legislative debate series, we want to know what issues matter most to you.
Sure, we know you care about issues like education, elections, water, the border, infrastructure and the environment.
But those are pretty broad.
So this week, we’re asking you to help us narrow it down a bit by filling out some simple surveys. Today’s “What’s Your Issue” is about the economy and infrastructure.
Think of it this way: If we can only ask candidates about one of the subtopics on this list, what should it be?
When it comes to the economy & infrastructure
It doesn’t hurt to know a county supervisor.
When Supervisor Steve Christy read a proclamation declaring May 3 through May 9, 2026 as “National Small Business Week,” he naturally handed it off to a local small business owner.
Then he told the room he’d hired that same company to tune up his AC unit before the summer heat kicks in.
To be clear, we’re not suggesting any kind of pay-to-play here. Proclamations honoring small businesses are routine — and Christy had to give it to someone.
But if you’re keeping score at home, a little name recognition doesn’t hurt.
For the record, the Tucson Agenda is also a small business.