Andy Biggs says the first week of his administration, if elected Arizona governor, would be spent signing a stack of bills that Gov. Katie Hobbs refused to approve. The U.S. representative and Republican nominee challenging Hobbs says he would spend 60 days working with the Legislature before even taking office to prepare dozens, or possibly hundreds, of those previously vetoed measures for his signature.
“We'll be signing all of these bills – bills that Katie Hobbs has vetoed,” Biggs said, according to ABC15 Arizona. He wants lawmakers to pass the bills again during the first week of the legislative session so he can sign them immediately. Under the Arizona Constitution, a governor who disapproves of a bill must return it with objections to the chamber where it originated for reconsideration — the mechanism Hobbs has used over and over against a Legislature that Republicans have controlled for decades, per the same ABC15 account.
The scale of that veto record depends on when it was counted. A June account from the Arizona Mirror put Hobbs' total at a record 541 bills vetoed since she took office in 2023, noting that 88 additional vetoes in 2026 alone brought her year's total to 151. An earlier tally in January, from the Arizona Capitol Times, had put the number at 390 bills across her first three legislative sessions — a gap that reflects when each count was taken rather than a dispute over the underlying figures.
Election Bills Topped Her Veto List
The Arizona Capitol Times report found that election-related legislation drew more vetoes from Hobbs than any other category, with 71 rejected bills. The outlet also found that 50 of the 390 vetoes tallied through January came from bills Republican lawmakers had sent her once before, and an analysis of bills filed for the 2026 session identified 30 previously vetoed measures expected to resurface. Sen. John Kavanagh had the most bills vetoed, with 39, followed by Rep. Gail Griffin with 36, according to the same report.
Not every piece of GOP legislation needs Hobbs' signature to move forward, however. Legislative leaders passed seven resolutions along party lines this year that bypass her veto entirely and go straight to voters, the Arizona Mirror reported.
Taxes, Transparency and a Pipeline From Texas
Biggs has named affordability and the economy as Arizonans' top concerns, and his platform leans heavily on cutting costs. He has proposed phasing out the state's income tax, which the Arizona Capitol Times reports generates an estimated $6 billion — about a third of the state's nearly $18 billion in tax revenue. He also wants state contractors who donate to political candidates to disclose those donations and their recipients, saying the move would address the appearance of corruption, and he plans to publish an online accounting of federal funds flowing into the governor's office, arguing lawmakers currently have no way to track how much money the office receives or how it's spent.
That transparency pitch is shadowed by a case involving Sunshine Residential, a company that ABC15 reports received a 30% rate increase after donating to Hobbs' inaugural fund and the Arizona Democratic Party, then later gave $150,000 to Hobbs' legal fund. Hobbs has said she was not involved in the rate-increase decision, and Attorney General Kris Mayes has said the evidence in the case did not support bribery charges, according to the same report.
On energy, Biggs wants to accelerate the Western Gateway Pipeline Project, which ABC15 reports is slated for completion in 2029 and would carry gas, diesel and jet fuel from Texas, the Gulf Coast and the Midwest into Arizona and California. He has said Arizona's reliance on California for fuel is itself a problem. Biggs also supports President Trump's executive order expanding red-dye diesel availability for farm vehicles, arguing it could lower diesel prices and help stabilize food costs — an idea Hobbs has already moved on herself, issuing an executive order allowing red-dye diesel on highways for agricultural operations and raising truck weight limits on state highways. Biggs separately wants Arizona to ask the federal government to suspend fuel standards to bring down gas prices, something Hobbs has already done at the state level.
Fighting Over the Housing Moratorium
Housing is another flashpoint. Biggs says he would end Hobbs' moratorium on homebuilding in Buckeye and Queen Creek, which the governor imposed over concerns about groundwater supply. He has called the three-year freeze a source of artificial scarcity and said lifting it would let builders resume single-family construction. Hobbs is appealing a judge's ruling that found her regulations were not created according to state law.
Arizona's housing crunch predates Hobbs' time in office, with the state failing to build enough homes since the Great Recession, a shortfall that has pushed prices higher, ABC15 notes. A Common Sense Institute report cited by Axios found Arizona has an immediate need for about 56,000 additional housing units and a longer-term shortfall of roughly 110,000, with the immediate shortage growing in 2025 after two straight years of improvement.
Biggs says lowering permitting requirements and selling state trust land to developers could jump-start construction, claiming permitting alone can account for as much as 40% of a home's cost. He also cited an unverified example from a builder who told him one jurisdiction requires a $50,000 electric vehicle battery charger in every low-income single-family home. Biggs and Hobbs do agree on at least one housing issue: both have said they want to limit investors from buying up large numbers of homes, according to the Sacramento Bee. Biggs has also said he would give cities and towns more authority to regulate short-term rentals, and that he would end state incentives for data centers — incentives Hobbs has already paused for three years, per the same report.
Water Policy Divide Looms Over Colorado River Talks
Water policy separates the two candidates just as sharply. Biggs favors boosting Arizona's water supply through augmentation, while Hobbs has emphasized conservation and opposes relaxing groundwater protections, according to KJZZ. Hobbs has vetoed dozens of Republican water bills over her first four years in office, the station reports, and whoever wins in November will represent Arizona in the next round of Colorado River negotiations in 2028.
Hobbs' campaign has characterized Biggs' broader tax plan differently than he has described it, telling the Tucson.com that his actual plan amounts to a 23% sales tax on all items. Separately, Biggs has defended his March vote against a measure directing President Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran, saying he opposes the war itself but believed the measure undermined the president's authority. The Hobbs campaign has not accepted ABC15's requests for a sit-down interview on the governor's record or Biggs' critiques of it.
