Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs launched what she is calling the “Arizona Promise Tour” today in Tucson.
She began the tour by speaking at the Tucson Convention Center at an event sponsored by the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She then planned to travel to Sahuarita and visit Tucson Electrical JATC, an electrical apprenticeship program.
Her stop in Sahuarita included a roundtable discussion with the Sahuarita police chief and officers. The town was recently granted $819,722 in Local Border Support funds to invest in border security initiatives as part of a state investment “to support local law enforcement’s border security work, drug interdiction efforts, and combatting human trafficking,” according to a Jan. 15 press release.
In a packed hall in the convention center, with attendees eating marranitos and drinking cans of Doc Holliday soda, the mood was polite but subdued.
Before the speech began, Moises Gomez, 37, told Arizona Luminaria he was “interested in what the governor has to say about business and development, especially in light of uncertainty with the new president.”
With dozens of executive orders issued by the Trump administration in its first four days in office, many of them promise a severe crackdown on migrants, including long-term residents of Arizona and other states. Import tariffs and strained foreign relations with México and other countries herald a time of uncertainty and fear in many communities in Southern Arizona.
Gomez works with Local First Arizona, where he focuses on economic development and sustainability. He is also the vice chair with Tucson Young Professionals. He said he and the businesses he works with are looking for “words of encouragement,” which “mean so much from the leader of the state.”
“It’s going to be a lot harder to move on with their days when there’s fear,” Gomez said, in reference to promised anti-immigrant crackdowns. He said a lot of people are looking to local leaders for assurance and a sense of stability.
“The promise of our deserts”
After prayers and songs and the introduction of various local high school contingents, Hobbs began her speech by acknowledging the fires in Southern California and issuing a call for peace and a recognition of “what binds us together.”
Throughout her speech the governor frequently paused in a closed-lipped smile to allow room for applause. One applause line was her hope to leave Arizona kids “with a better tomorrow.”
Defining the Promise of Arizona as “the promise that everyday people can find economic security, opportunity and freedom,” she also nodded to the natural beauty and resources of Arizona, which she said includes “the promise of our deserts.”
She then pivoted, saying that “for too many, that Arizona promise has slipped away.”
Citing costs of living increases and freedoms being “under attack,” she said “our sense of security has faltered.”
Hobbs highlighted key areas in which she hopes effort can be made to restore that security and deliver on the Arizona promise by focusing on housing, education, border security, and reproductive rights.
Housing
Blaming speculators, legislative inaction, and governmental red tape, Hobbs said the “high cost of housing is forcing [the Arizona] promise out of reach.”
She said that the proliferation of vacation rentals owned by out of state speculators has been “turning family homes into party houses.”
A focus for Hobbs for years, she repeated her call for local cities and counties to be able to regulate vacation rentals.
And while she praised her own and local jurisdictions’ cutting of red tape to expand access to casitas and build duplexes and triplexes in downtowns, she said she didn’t want to expose our neighborhoods to “untested experiments.”
While the move toward higher-density housing can be controversial, experts say it is a key step towards affordability and environmental stability.
She touted the Arizona Is Home program, a down payment assistance program for first time home buyers.
She also spoke at length about the rise in homelessness, focusing on working “to ensure our veterans have a place to call home.” In her recently released budget proposal she recommends slating $5 million to help veterans buy houses.
Hobbs said the state owes it to its residents to “create more opportunities to find a home.”
Border security
Even as the Pentagon plans to send at least 1,500 active duty troops to the border — with the total number possibly reaching 10,000 — Hobbs boasted about beating the feds to it.
In December, 2023, Hobbs signed an executive order sending Arizona National Guard troops to the border, and their mission expanded last summer, with a focus on helping U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers interdict drugs smuggled from México to the United States.
Hobbs said that since then the operations have seized eight million fentanyl pills.
Expressing her desire to work with the state legislature to “protect our border,” Hobbs did not address the multiple executive orders issued by the new Trump administration targeting immigrants.
But she did say that if you immigrate to this country and follow the law, “the Arizona promise can be yours too.”
Schools
Hobbs’ approach to schools concentrated on what she called the necessity of renewing Prop. 123, a 2016 ballot measure passed by voters which funneled land trust fund money into state public schools for 10 years. The funding is set to expire in July. Last year, Hobbs issued a plan to renew the proposition, and is focusing on that again in 2025.
About 1.15 million students in Arizona attend K-12 public schools. According to a 2024 report from Consumer Affairs, Arizona ranks last for overall quality of public education.
In her speech, Hobbs said she wanted to “give Arizona’s children the opportunity they deserve,” and said renewing Prop. 123 could do that without raising taxes.
“Let’s provide the certainty our schools need,” Hobbs said, insisting on the need to pass a Prop 123 extension.
In the most critical portion of her speech, she also lambasted Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which offer state funds to parents and guardians to send their children to private or religious schools.
Hobbs called the program “a billion-dollar boondoggle increasingly scamming Arizonans,” adding that it has “virtually no safeguards.”
She called for instituting responsible income caps which would limit public funds going to households in high income brackets, as well as making sure taxpayers know where their money is going.
Abortion
Hobbs invoked her “ironclad” commitment to protecting the freedom to make your own medical decisions, but said there is a lot of work to do to offer, especially women, the health care they need.
A Jan 2024 report from Arizona Department of Health Services found that more mothers are dying in or soon after childbirth, calling it a “growing maternal health crisis.”
Hobbs said that she wanted to make postpartum healthcare coverage permanent and said it was “a moral responsibility that mothers and their families can access the healthcare they need.”
Referencing both access to abortion and in vitro fertilization, or IVF, she called reproductive rights “fundamental values of freedom and family.”
Water
Water has been an increasing focus for Hobbs over the past year, and she made a forceful plea to Arizona lawmakers to “protect this most precious of Arizona’s resources.”
Hobbs reminded attendees she has been working with four tribal nations to negotiate water right settlement discussions.
While she called for federal lawmakers to put into law the new settlement agreements, she said, “The solutions to our water challenges won’t come from DC. They’ll come from Western states working together.”
Lukewarm reactions
The mood was upbeat after the speech. As the clapping petered out, dignitaries and other guests collected their commemorative candles or chiltepin flakes before filing out.
Bear Rosas, a 17-year-old from Salpointe Catholic High School, told Arizona Luminaria he liked Hobbs’ message.
“I’m glad she talked about the housing crisis,” Rosas said. “And for me, bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, the right for women to choose, is important.”
“She said a lot of things I agree with,” Rosas said.
Moises Gomez, however, had a more tepid response. He called Hobbs’ speech “level-headed and clear,” but said it lacked something.
“How do we empower local communities and businesses to protect themselves, protect their employees?” he said.
Gomez shared that his father was deported when he was in high school, and he recognizes a renewed feeling of real fear in the air.
“If the government cannot do it, we have to empower people here legally to extend compassion,” Gomez said.
“We need to count on our leaders,” he said. “But we also need to push them.”
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