Ragan bid to overturn Republican primary loss overwhelmingly rejected by party

Posted on by Andy Sher

MT. JULIET — The Tennessee Republican Party’s state executive committee on Saturday overwhelmingly rejected state Rep. John Ragan’s effort to overturn his primary loss to Rick Scarbrough in House District 33.

The vote was 41-7 against Ragan’s challenge.

Ragan, a former Air Force pilot and businessman who is chair of the House Government Operations Committee, charged crossover voting by Democrats amounted to “poison” in the primary. 

“Examine this rationale by way of analogy,” Ragan said. “A waiter sets a cup before you marked election results and you can smell the drink is poison. Because you don’t know how much poison is in it or who poisoned it, should you refuse it and throw it out? Without question.”

“Whether it’s a poison drink or a corrupted election, either should be tossed out,” he said.

Ragan alleged there was an “unmistakable odor of corruption” from crossover voting by Democrats. The representative said numerous voters had not been “bona fide” Republicans meeting voting qualifications normally applied to GOP candidates. He charged his data showed “hundreds of votes cast by counterfeit Republicans.”

Ragan who has served 14 years in the House and was seeking an eight term, lost the primary by 258 votes. The Tennessee Secretary of State’s office reported 2,963 votes for Scarbrough to 2,705 for Ragan.

Rick Scarbrough speaks to the Tennessee Republican Party’s state executive committee in Mt. Juliet on Sept. 7, 2024. (Credit: Erik Schelzig)

Scarbrough told Republicans Ragan “has accused over 1,000 Anderson County voters, the vast majority of those voters are first- and second-time Republican primary voters with no history of voting in any Democratic Party primary.”

“These are the same voters we need to have in order to be successful in November, calling them criminals makes it difficult,” Scarbrough said. 

Scarborough is a former Clinton police chief. He said he was coming before the panel “proudly as a Republican nominee, because I earned their trust. I take my job as a Republican candidate for District 33 very seriously. You can trust me.” 

Lang Wiseman, an attorney and former deputy and chief counsel to Gov. Bill Lee, told executive committee members that “politics unfortunately has winners and losers. That’s unfortunate, but that’s what politics is about. Elections and politics are about math.”

Attorney Lang Wiseman speaks to the Tennessee Republican Party’s state executive committee in Mt. Juliet on Sept. 7, 2024. (Credit: Erik Schelzig)

“At the end of the day, it’s about math,” Wiseman said. “You count the votes and you determine who won in election cases, you look at a challenge to see the math. Does the math work?” 

“Respectfully, no one has shown you the math,” Wiseman said. “The reason for that is because the math isn’t there.”

Blast of nostalgia: Docking Building on track for 2025 completion

Posted on by Matt Resnick

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

The once-hallowed halls of the Docking State Office Building have been gutted, but some of the building’s decades-old nostalgia will make a triumphant return next summer. 

After a winding process involving Gov. Laura Kelly, former Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature, a decision was made to reconfigure the 1950s-era building to four floors from its original 14-story structure. 

Demolition began in January 2023 and the project is on track to be completed by summer 2025, according to the project’s executive manager, Jim Keusler, of Wichita-based Hutton. Additionally, the project’s manpower includes 125 workers on site. 

“The Docking State Office Building reconstruction project will celebrate the Docking Building’s design legacy as a forward thinking and contemporary design of its time by utilizing advanced design and engineering strategies to achieve energy conservation, improved building comfort, and longevity,” according to a news release from the state Department of Administration.

Preservation element 

A key feature of the renovation is preservation of materials from the building prior to its demolition. The blueprint calls for “reused and recycled materials” to be incorporated into the renovated structure. The materials set for reuse include limestone from the building’s exterior, greenstone that was present in the building’s window systems, granite, marble and glass. 

“Taking apart the building, preserving all those materials and then incorporating them has been a unique challenge that is not typical for a lot of projects,” Keusler said. 

Keusler noted glass from the older windows will be ground and used as part of the flooring. He added that preservation of the materials was “definitely preferred” by Kelly and others in the legislative orbit as “part of their decision to move forward with the project.” 

“It was stated as a goal for the project for as long as I’ve been involved with it,” he said. “I would call it ‘nostalgia’ in the sense that we’re trying to preserve the history of the old building as we develop and build the new building.” 

The preservation and repurposing process, Keusler said, entailed piece-by-piece disassembly of the structure in reverse order of its original construction.

“We were trying to save so many materials and reconnect the original building’s steel and foundation,” he said. “I would classify it as a specialized deconstruction process and not necessarily a demolition process.”

The materials were palletized and shrink-wrapped after removal from the building. They were then sent to fabrication plants to be “resized, refinished and sent back to the site.” 

Despite the complexity of the process, Keusler said his team avoided damaging any of the materials. 

He estimated the project is roughly 60% complete and said the structure should eventually look like “a modern office building with nice new office spaces and extensive glass for sunlight.” 

“All of those good properties,” Keusler said. 

As for the original structure, the multi-story basement levels were retained. Equipment used by energy plant operators in the basement before construction remained operational throughout the demolition process, Keusler said. 

He said that the project doesn’t expand parking space but that the underground tunnel leading to the Statehouse remains intact. He added that the new structure has the same footprint as the original. 

“It looks similar, but it’s not similar,” he said. “It’s been modernized and really updated.”

Project scope

After years of debate over the building’s fate, the Legislature in 2022 earmarked $120 million in expenditures to reconfigure and renovate the building. The funding was allocated for fiscal years 2022, ’23 and ’24 and split evenly between the State General Fund and Kansas’ American Rescue Plan Act relief fund. 

The Department of Administration has since adjusted funding, tacking on $19 million to bring the project total to $139 million. 

As the Legislative Budget Committee learned Wednesday, roughly $4.96 million of $60 million allocated from the State General Fund was reappropriated from fiscal year 2024 to ’25. According to the information obtained from the Legislative Research Department, approximately $5 million remained in the account that the Department of Administration had anticipated spending before the end of the fiscal year. But because of project timing issues identified by the Department of Administration, $4.96 million remained in the account at the conclusion of fiscal year 2024. Thus, the funds were reappropriated to the following year. 

Additionally, the administration department made a $19 million transfer from the federal dollars appropriated for the project’s overall renovation. Those funds, according to the Legislative Research Department, are for the project’s overall renovation and were generated from interest gained from American Recuse Plan money. The research department initially estimated the figure to be around $17 million, which was also a point of contention during the recent budget committing meeting. 

Rep. Henry Helgerson, D-Eastborough, told State Affairs the $19 million was for “furniture and equipment” purchases, but he expressed concern because the funding wasn’t appropriated by the Legislature. 

To this point, Keusler said the project’s timeline has experienced “minor” disruptions, mainly supply chain issues related to obtaining items such as electrical switch gears, which Keusler said are expected to arrive in October.

“It’s nothing we haven’t been able to overcome,” he said.

Sen. J.R. Claeys, R-Salina, said his “fingerprints were all over” the project’s blueprint. He said the proposals for the building’s fate ranged from repurposing it to condos to leveling the structure, while leaving the energy center underground. 

“You kind of have to go through all the bad ideas just to get them out of the way,” he said. “Initially, what we were looking at was maintaining a certain portion of the building, and building a new floor on top.”

Claeys said after receiving cost estimates for that plan, “it made way more sense to just raze it to the basement level.” 

“It turned out to be a pretty good plan that will serve the interest of Kansans over time,” he said. 

Kelly is also pleased with the building’s outlook, adding that since its opening in 1957, it has served Kansans well.

“The new Docking Building is taking us to a brighter future for our state government and the people we serve,” she said in January in comments celebrating the reconstruction of the building. “Soon, we’ll be able to see what this structure will look like when complete — forward-looking and modern, hosting an exhibition space, a café, a gym, a health clinic and even an events center.” 

The structure, originally called the Kansas State Office Building, was renamed in 1987 in honor of former Gov. Robert Docking.

Matt Resnick is a statehouse reporter at State Affairs Pro Kansas/Hawver’s Capitol Report. Reach him at [email protected]

How could the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron affect states?

Posted on by Brett Stover

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Chevron, the cornerstone of modern administrative law, threw much of the country’s regulatory environment up in the air.

While the dust settles federally, legal experts say it’s unclear how the Loper Bright decision will affect states. But some warn it could trigger a race to the bottom that leaves states scrambling to deregulate in order to attract business investment.

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Gina Raimondo, brought by a group of New Jersey herring fishermen, challenged a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regulation — and along with it, a 40-year-old precedent.

In 1984, an environmental group challenged an Environmental Protection Agency policy change made shortly after President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. In its landmark ruling on Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Supreme Court said federal courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of the law to fill gaps Congress didn’t address.

But on June 28, the current Supreme Court ruled 6-2 in favor of the fishermen, overruling Chevron.

Federal agencies are empowered by statutes to implement regulations, said Richard Levy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Kansas.

“But those statutes cannot and do not resolve all questions,” he said. “They typically incorporate relatively open-ended standards.”

The question at the heart of both cases is that when the text of a law is unclear, to what extent should courts defer to the agency’s statutory interpretation? Levy said Chevron told courts to take a hands-off approach.

“In the Chevron decision, the [Supreme] Court basically said, ‘Well, if the statute is ambiguous, that means Congress wants the agency to have the first crack, and courts should accept the agency’s interpretation of a statutory provision that’s ambiguous, as long as the agency’s construction is a reasonable one,’” he said.

Loper Bright directs courts to take the opposite approach, Levy said, telling them it’s their “responsibility to say what the statute means, even if the statute is ambiguous.”

‘It’s pretty unknown’

In the 1980s, Chevron doctrine “was a darling of the conservatives,” according to University of Idaho law professor Linda Jellum.

But over time it allowed major swings in statutory interpretation as the presidency vacillated between Republican and Democratic administrations, she said, and “agencies lost credibility.”

Jellum anticipates the post-Loper Bright world will bring back an emphasis on consistent interpretation from federal agencies. But she and other experts doubt it will have as big of an effect nationally as some would suggest.

“To me, we’re not necessarily in a hugely different world,” Jellum said. “We just have different nomenclature.”

Craig Oren, professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School, agrees, saying by email that overturning Chevron won’t “make nearly the difference that some commentators think.”

Before predicting Loper Bright’s impact on state governments, Boston University law professor Jack Beermann said it’s important to first anticipate how it could affect federal regulatory authority.

“So in some sense, it’s pretty unknown,” he said. “It’s hard to know, because we don’t really know whether the end of Chevron is going to result in any significant change.”

Chevron had already been on the decline, with the Supreme Court gradually chipping away at agency authority over the past decade.

Levy said the decision is more significant in terms of what it signals “versus what it actually does.” It’ll likely make it easier for courts to reverse agency decisions, he said, but “I don’t think they had any barriers even before Loper Bright.”

“It signals to lower courts that the Supreme Court is on board with judicial intervention in administrative decision making,” he said. “I think that’s likely to encourage lower courts to intervene much more frequently.”

One possible effect, Beermann said, is that it will take away agencies’ ability to be “creative” in their statutory interpretation. That means agencies will be less flexible and unable to adapt policies as quickly.

Agencies have taken on more of the burden of statutory interpretation as Washington, D.C.’s perpetual gridlock has slowed down the legislative branch’s efforts to amend or create regulations, Jellum said. “Congress kind of got used to the agencies stepping in and doing their job.”

“In a properly functioning democracy, maybe Congress could respond and be more explicit,” Levy said. “But in the world of congressional dysfunction, there’s nothing that can be done, and this just means that courts are going to be running the country.”

‘Pick up the slack’

If those factors converge, Loper Bright could arguably make it harder — to an unknown degree — to regulate at the federal level. Beermann said that would force states to “pick up the slack.”

“Then this just becomes a generic question, ‘What happens if there’s less federal regulation?’” Beermann said. “And the answer is, there are going to be problems that the states are going to be on their own about. … States will have to step in and fill regulatory gaps.”

The problem with that, Jellum said, would be the potential inconsistency from state to state. She and Levy both said it could fire the starting gun on a race to the bottom where states could deregulate in hopes of attracting businesses.

“Unless all the states see it as a benefit to regulate industries in a certain way, they’re going to err on the side of less regulation to attract more businesses to their state,” Jellum said.

Ultimately, the question of Loper Bright’s eventual impact remains up in the air, Beermann said.

“Maybe it will turn out to be … a nothing burger or a not-much-of-anything burger,” he said.

Brett Stover is a Statehouse reporter at State Affairs Pro Kansas/Hawver’s Capitol Report. Reach him at [email protected] or on X @BrettStoverKS.

New Hire

Posted on by Clifton Dowell

Cody Hill, a name familiar to many in North Carolina’s government affairs community, joins the State Affairs team today to help manage sales and strategic partnerships in North Carolina and the Southeast. For the past four years, Hill worked as head of partnerships at UpState, a North Carolina legislative tracking service based in Durham. He previously worked for Amazon and as a product operations leader for Facebook in San Francisco. Hill grew up just outside of Washington, D.C., in northern Virginia. He studied public policy and Spanish at The College of William & Mary and earned a Master of Business Administration at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

“We’re thrilled to have Cody join the team, bringing best-in-class legislative news and information to North Carolina and beyond,” said Scott Miller, vice president of State Affairs Pro. “State Affairs and NC Insider are on the verge of deploying new resources to serve the needs of legislative professionals, policy leaders, elected officials and others who know how impactful the operations of state government are.” 

Reach Hill at [email protected].

For questions or comments, or to pass along story ideas, please write to Clifton Dowell at [email protected] or @StateAffairsNC on X.

Mixed bag: Ethics commission gets good, bad news in court on GOP donation investigation

Posted on by Bryan Richardson

The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission got a win in court Friday after a ruling declared it can continue with its subpoenas on two county Republican leaders.

But a lower court decision last month identified a campaign finance rule as unconstitutional, placing the commission’s investigation of a “pass-through scheme” into question.

The Kansas Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed the Shawnee County District Court ruling that upheld the commission’s subpoenas of Fabian Shepard, former chairperson of the Johnson County Republican Party, and Cheryl Reynolds, former chairperson of the Shawnee County Republican Party.

The court said the district court made a “well-reasoned and well-written decision.”

“Having reviewed the Commission’s factual allegations enumerated in its findings of fact and conclusions of law attached to the subpoenas duces tecum, we agree that they establish a reasonable suspicion that a campaign finance violation occurred,” the ruling said.

But last month, Shawnee County District Court struck down the commission’s petition in a newer subpoena case involving Matt Billingsley, treasurer for the Lift Up Kansas PAC.

The recent court rulings are the latest step in an ongoing probe the commission began in 2022 to investigate a “pass-through scheme” involving Republican legislators and party officials during the 2020 and 2021 elections. The commission argued the activity was a way to provide money that would have otherwise exceeded contribution limits.

The Kansas Republican Party received $39,000 in 2020 and $15,000 in 2021, money that originated from the Republican State Leadership Committee, based in Washington, D.C., the commission said in court documents.

The commission alleged the “scheme” came into play when the leadership committee distributed money to Lift Up Kansas PAC and Right Way Kansas PAC for Economic Growth.

The two political action committees, which the commission described as “nearly inactive,” then gave the money to Republican central committees in Johnson, Shawnee and Sedgwick counties and distributed the funds to the state party.

Different argument leads to different ruling

The lower court rulings involved the same judge — Teresa Watson — but she came to a drastically different conclusion after hearing a new argument on the more recent case.

Fleeson Gooing Law Firm, representing Shepard and Reynolds, and Kriegshauser Ney Law Group, representing Billingsley, filed motions to strike the commission’s petition under the Public Speech Protection Act, citing First Amendment rights.

The key difference is Billingsley’s attorneys challenged the constitutionality of a state law that says, “No person shall make a contribution in the name of another person, and no person shall knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another.”

They argued the law is unconstitutionally vague because it doesn’t define “in the name of another,” and Judge Watson agreed.

“The statute does not give fair warning to those who may be subject to it, notably for the alleged violations of K.S.A. 25-4154(a) used here as the basis for the proposed subpoena to Billingsley,” she wrote. “Further, there is no precision or guidance in the statute sufficient to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.”

The ethics commission has appealed the ruling to the Kansas Supreme Court. Mark Skoglund, the commission’s executive director, declined Friday to comment on the court proceedings because of the ongoing investigation.

Josh Ney, partner with Kriegshauser Ney Law Group, noted “the irony” in Watson’s involvement in both district court rulings.

“From a legal practitioner standpoint, it’s always exciting when a court finally gets to the actual juicy issue, which is, ‘Is this unconstitutional?’” Ney said. “That’s what makes the news.”

Ney also mentioned the length of time spent arguing the case.

“It feels like we’re kind of in Alice in Wonderland at this point, almost three years into going back and forth on this novel interpretation the governmental ethics commission staff has been insistent on trying to get recognized,” he said.

Push for changing law

Ney and Ryan A. Kriegshauser as well as T. Chet Compton of Fleeson Gooing Law Firm spoke about the cases during testimony in front of the Special Committee on Governmental Ethics Reform and Campaign Finance Law in October 2023.

They testified in support of legislative action to provide legal clarity to campaign finance law.

Considering the support from the committee, Ney said the Legislature knows how to solve the vagueness problem, but it hasn’t.

“It’s not that hard to bring clarity to the law,” he said. “It just takes political will.”

Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, chaired the special committee. It recommended the Legislature clarify certain definitions, but Proctor said a lack of legislative progress this session was by design.

“Behind the scenes throughout the session, one of the conferees who testified before our interim committee tried to work with Director Skoglund to find a solution that they could both live with to try to address some of these ambiguities in the law,” Proctor said.

He said the conferee, whom he declined to name, and Skoglund weren’t able to reach an agreement.

“I gave them a whole year to try to work something out,” Proctor said. “These court cases just underline the fact that the law is too vague.”

Proctor said his intent — if he’s reelected and reappointed as House Elections Committee chair — is to draft language during next year’s legislative session.

He said the goal is to draft a bipartisan plan that clarifies the definitions of a political action committee and “giving in the name of another.”

As the Legislature potentially moves forward with legislation, Ney said the process through the legal system continues.

“I think that there’s a lot of baseball left to be played,” he said.

Bryan Richardson is the managing editor at State Affairs Pro Kansas/Hawver’s Capitol Report. Reach him at [email protected] or on X @RichInNews.

High court blocks Petersen, Toma from escaping deposition, again

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant Petersen and Toma an out from sitting for depositions in the federal challenge to the state’s trans sports ban. District Court Judge Jennifer Zipps first found Petersen and Toma “waived their legislative privilege by intervening in the litigation and putting their motives at issue,” and cited a prior case over Arizona voting laws where Petersen and Toma similarly sought to escape discovery and depositions and failed upwards on appeal. “The underlying rationale of protecting high ranking officials from being forced to participate in litigation is not applicable where the high ranking officials request to and voluntarily insert themselves as a party to a litigation and actively request discovery from other parties,” Zipps wrote. On appeal to the Ninth Circuit, the panel denied a request to overturn the lower court’s ruling and a request to stay proceedings found the two had “not demonstrated a clear and indisputable right to the extraordinary remedy of mandamus.” At SCOTUS, the legislative leaders again hit a wall. Justice Elena Kagan denied the request without explanation. Petersen and Toma must now sit for deposition and provide previously shielded emails with subject lines including “Womens Sports Talking pts,” “Save Women’s Sports Act 2022 Talking Points,” in line with a motion to compel granted by Zipps.

Legislators denounce Rogers for repeating Nazi slogans on X

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff

In a joint statement on Thursday, Sundareshan and Epstein asked Senate GOP leadership to denounce Rogers for “repeating Nazi slogans” in posts on X. In two quote tweets to posts relating to an election in Germany on Sunday, Rogers replied, “Deutschland Deutschland über alles,” which translates to “Germany, Germany above all.”  “Arizona deserves an answer as to why Republicans believe a Senator willing to post the Nazi rallying cry that Germany removed from its national anthem after WWII, and who previously received a Senate censure for similar antisemitic activities, should be in charge of overseeing the Senate Elections Committee,” their joint statement said. “Senator Wendy Rogers has once again disgraced the Arizona Legislature by repeating Nazi slogans. She has shown time and again that she feels no remorse for aligning herself with this level of hatred that led to the murder of millions, and we no longer trust that asking her to act appropriately will change her behavior.” Rogers was censured in 2022 after calling for violence against her political opponents at an event organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. “I do not apologize, I will not back down and I am sorely disappointed in the leadership of this body for colluding with the Democrats to attempt to destroy my reputation,” Rogers said in a post on X at the time, in response to her censure. Senate Republican leadership has not formally responded to the situation, but Petersen did come to Roger’s defense on social media. “Because she does not nor has she ever supported Nazis,” Petersen said in a reply post on X to talk show host Barry Markson. “It’s ridiculous.” Rogers did not respond to our reporter’s inquiry before today’s Yellow Sheet Report deadline.

Mitchell, Kolodin feud over firm that processes county ballots

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell accused Kolodin of “spreading falsehoods” about her office killing a proposed deal between the county and Runbeck Election Services, the company that prints and processes ballots in the county. In a Thursday post on X, Mitchell wrote she called Kolodin to clarify the situation, but he has “decided to persist in spreading false information.” In March, Kolodin and Rogers drafted a memorandum of understanding with Runbeck, which included some reforms of Runbeck services aimed to strengthen election integrity, including having bipartisan observers at Runbeck and allowing the House to audit the software licensed signature verification and ballot duplication. Mitchell wrote in her post that Kolodin attempted to negotiate a separate contract that would change the terms of current contracts between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Runbeck, but county supervisors chose not to accept those changes on March 11. Mitchell accused Kolodin of misrepresenting the situation by claiming her office rejected the change in terms, but the attorney’s office doesn’t have the authority to accept or reject contract terms. That power lies with the board of supervisors and the attorney’s office only being able to advise supervisors. “Rep. Kolodin’s misinformation campaign is false, irresponsible, and incendiary,” Mitchell wrote. Kolodin didn’t respond to a request for comment by Yellow Sheet Report’s deadline Friday. “The first half of the first sentence is evergreen,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer wrote in response to Mitchell’s post, which reads “(Kolodin) is spreading falsehoods.” Kolodin did comment to Arizona Daily Independent on Thursday and said Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy has influenced the board of supervisors with election policy.

Agencies ask governor’s office for money after cuts came to many

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff

State agencies have submitted their budget requests to the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting, and most are jockeying for more money in FY 2026 despite cuts made to settle the state’s budget deficit in FY 2024 and 2025. Not all agency budget requests are available online yet, and OSPB did not respond to our reporter’s question about when they would be available. But some of the major agencies, like the Dept. of Public Safety and the Dept. of Environmental Quality have posted requests online, outlining the funding they’ll need to keep their agencies successful in the coming years. ADEQ submitted a detailed list of funding asks that included 15 items needing budgetary attention. Many of the agency’s budgetary limitations stem from fee-based programs that are not generating enough revenue to stay afloat and affecting ADEQ’s ability to comply with federal laws like the Clean Water Act. The agency is asking for over $28 million more in appropriated funds in FY 2026 to address issues like water contamination, air emissions, abandoned mines and hazardous waste. Meanwhile, DPS is asking for over $53 million more in appropriated funds to help finance state Highway Patrol projects and salaries and uniforms for officers. The agency is eliminating $770 million in funding for public safety equipment after lawmakers passed the most recent state budget. Other agencies are also likely to request more funding for FY 2026, but whether or not the state will have the money to grant those requests remains to be seen.

Mayes to pay more than $70,000 for failed opioid settlement lawsuit

Posted on by Yellow Sheet Report Staff

Mayes agreed to pay more than $71,500 in attorneys fees to Petersen, Toma, Hobbs, and the Dept. of Administration following her unsuccessful attempt to halt the allocation of $115 million in opioid settlement dollars to the Dept. of Corrections in the FY2025 budget. Petersen and Toma are set to receive $41,400, Hobbs is entitled to $16,172 and the Dept. of Administration is due $13,989. After lawmakers passed the FY2025 budget and Hobbs’ signed it, Mayes was supposed to transfer the first $70 million from the opioid settlement fund to the Dept.. of Corrections for treatment of those impacted by the opioid crisis. If Mayes failed to do so, the job would then fall to the Dept. of Administration. But instead of moving the money, Mayes took to the Superior Court and filed suit against Dept. of Administration for a block on the department’s transfer of the funds, claiming an illegal payment of public monies. The court temporarily granted Mayes’ request and put a temporary hold in place. Petersen, Toma and Hobbs then jointly intervened. The governor and legislative leaders asked the court to dissolve the temporary hold on the funds and claimed, per statute, the funds had to be directed “with the advice and consent of the Arizona Legislature.” In line with the legislature’s argument, Judge John Hannah, a Napolitano appointee, dissolved the order and found the legislature indeed had the latitude to allocate funds from the opioid settlement. Mayes voluntarily dismissed the suit, and Hannah granted a request for attorney fees. In a stipulated filing, Mayes agreed to pay $71,561 in total, and the parties asked the court to enter final judgment.

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