Sharing acorn stew with tribal leaders in San Carlos. Zip lining at Grand Canyon West on Hualapai tribal land. Riding the country’s only tribally-owned mountain roller coaster at Sunrise Park Resort. And kids running alongside a small pack of Rez dogs to greet a state SUV rumbling down a remote reservation road.
These are some of the moments Jason Chavez — director of Tribal Affairs in the Governor’s Office — says best capture the spirit of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ nearly three-and-a-half-year push to meet with all of Arizona’s 22 federally recognized tribes. That effort reached a milestone May 27 when Hobbs visited the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe.
“Tribal partnerships are a pillar of my administration and proactive engagement with Tribal Nations is a priority,” Hobbs said in a statement shared Wednesday with Arizona Luminaria. “I am proud to be the first Arizona Governor to visit all 22 Tribes in the state. I am deeply grateful to the Tribal leaders and members who welcomed me and my staff into their communities to listen and learn.”
“I look forward to continuing to work hand in hand with Tribes to deliver the opportunity, security and freedom that are fundamental to the Arizona Promise.”
22 Tribal Nations. 22 separate answers.
Hobbs kicked off her visits in late January 2023, just weeks after her inauguration, when she attended listening sessions organized by former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to hear from federal boarding school survivors on the Gila River Indian Community and Navajo Nation.
As of late May, Hobbs has made 35 visits to Tribal Nations — meeting with each of Arizona’s 22 tribes at least once and returning to a few multiple times, according to a list of the visits provided by her office. Chavez — who is a Tohono O’odham citizen – helped convene and organize the visits, and attended all but two.
The list shows the Democrat governor met with at least one Tribal Nation nearly every month since 2023. The largest gap was nearly six months between Aug. 29, 2025, and Feb. 24, 2026. A spokesperson for Hobbs said the gap was “a matter of scheduling” and that the governor remained in regular communication with tribal leaders.
Hobbs visited the Navajo Nation and Gila River Indian Community the most — five times each.
Chavez said the general format of the visits was as diverse as each Tribal Nation.
“So 22 tribes, I have 22 separate answers for you,” he said.
“Tribal affairs is everything, it includes water, public safety, infrastructure, health care, gaming, education,” Chavez continued. “So depending on which tribe we were talking to or which day of the week it was, it was a different priority.”
Some visits were ceremonial, like in October 2023 when Hobbs presented a Gold Star medal to a family in Gila River whose loved one, Mathew B. Juan, was the first Arizonan and Native American killed in combat during World War I.
Others were urgent. In July 2024, Hobbs visited the San Carlos Apache Tribe to survey damage from the Watch Fire. “She toured the emergency operations center, met with first responders, met with tribal leaders to understand what the needs are and of course to thank those that were volunteering their time, collecting donations there at the high school,” Chavez said.
The fire destroyed more than 20 homes and burned over 2,100 acres, according to ABC15.
“We have endured fires before but the human scale of this is particularly devastating,” San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler stated in a news release at the time. “Unfortunately, multiple families lost homes. It was horrible all the way around. I have received reports of families leaving with nothing, elders having no transportation, and kids running without shoes. We have never experienced anything like this.”
Hobbs directed up to $400,000 to support the Tribal Nation and local communities managing the fire. She joined the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s call for a major disaster declaration, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver assistance to people reeling from devastating fires. The agency announced in October 2024 that federal disaster assistance was available to the San Carlos Apache Tribe to aid in recovery efforts, according to a news release.
At times, the visits were simply about being present in an effort to rebuild trust that had eroded between the state and Tribal Nations over decades, Chavez said. “Showing up matters,” he added.
And so Hobbs tasted traditional foods, listened to traditional songs and, at one point, bird danced with women from the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe.
“There’s a lot of pride there — like, this is a governor and she’s in my community,” Chavez said. “So a lot of really happy moments … but really powerful moments too.”
Several policy changes also grew directly from conversations with tribal leaders, Chavez said. Hopi leaders, for example, told Hobbs they had spent decades trying to secure state trust lands promised under the 1996 Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act.
Hobbs, upon returning to Phoenix, directed the state land department to work on a solution, which in December 2024 resulted in an agreement to exchange 110,000 acres of state trust land near Winslow to the Hopi Tribe. It was unclear as of May 29 if the land had been fully conveyed.
“Today is not only another historic day, it is also a day of celebration for the Hopi Tribe. The 1996 Hopi-Navajo Land Settlement Act is being fulfilled. The Hopi Tribe signed the settlement with the United States 30 years ago,” Hopi Tribe Chairman Timothy L. Nuvangyaoma said in a news release at the time.
Nuvangyaoma expressed gratitude to officials with state and federal agencies who united to honor the settlement. “A special thank you to Governor Hobbs, and Commissioner Sahid for their leadership, collaboration and dedication to this effort,” he added.
“Within Hopi, it is our time of the soyal’ang ceremony — the start of the New Year and the revitalization of life,” Nuvangyaoma continued. “It is fitting that this historic moment coincides with such an important time.”
“These problems weren’t created overnight”
Going into this effort, Chavez said, they were well aware of a long-standing reality in many tribal communities: elected officials only showed up when they were running for office or when they wanted something. And Hobbs, he said, was determined to break that pattern by prioritizing tribal communities from the start and throughout her term.
“The very first thing she did the morning of her inauguration was to have breakfast with tribal leaders,” Chavez said. “That was a sign of the respect, the role and the place that tribes would have within her administration.”
Still, Hobbs’ milestone comes the same week she launched a multi-million dollar reelection ad campaign, the Arizona Mirror reports. And despite Hobbs’ visits to Tribal Nations, several Indigenous people have told Luminaria in recent months that they remain frustrated with the state’s progress on urgent issues, including addressing the ongoing injustice of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
At an MMIP Awareness Day gathering at the Arizona state Capitol on May 5, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis echoed some of those concerns, noting that the state still lacks a coordinated, statewide MMIP database — something the Hobbs-established MMIP task force initially sought to collect. The task force was formed in 2023 and is set to end at the close of 2026 — unless Hobbs decides to extend the Indigenous-led policy work.
Lewis, who helped create Arizona’s new Turquoise Alert system, also stressed at the gathering one of the alert’s major gaps: it does not apply to missing children labeled runaways, including its namesake, Emily Pike.
Tribal leaders and advocates also have pressed Hobbs on other issues at several points during her term. In 2024, Havasupai leaders and Indigenous activists called on Hobbs to close a uranium mine south of Grand Canyon, citing its potential threats to the environment and health. Hobbs, at the time, defended the mine as one of the most heavily regulated in the country.
However, new state filings show the mine’s operator is now asking state regulators to raise the allowable arsenic limit in groundwater under the site – a request scientists said was dangerous, KNAU reports.
To the people who want more done, Chavez says, “We certainly see them. I see them and I hear them.”
“These problems weren’t created overnight and they’re, unfortunately, not going to be solved overnight,” he continued, adding that some fixes may require lawmakers to act, as opposed to executive action from the governor.
“It takes all of us working together to be able to address some of these, and something that is really unique in Gov. Hobbs’ approach is that she has sort of this open door policy with tribal leaders.”
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