Hobbs’ top spokesperson out days after press secretary resigns

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs switched up her leadership team on Friday, just days after her press secretary resigned amid Republican outrage over a tweet.

Josselyn Berry, Hobbs’ press secretary, just stepped down Tuesday and now Murphy Hebert is out as Hobbs’ director of communications, with her replacement to be announced sometime next week, according to a news release. 

Alli Bones, Hobbs’ chief of staff, told the Arizona Mirror that the team hadn’t yet decided if they could find another place for Hebert within the administration or if she’d be looking for work in the public sector. 

Bones said that the reorganization of the governor’s leadership team was unrelated to Berry’s resignation. 

“This review has been going on for the past couple of weeks and…has been in the works for a while,” Bones said. “These things don’t happen overnight.” 

As part of the shakeup in the leadership team, Will Gaona, formerly the director of public affairs, will move up to deputy chief of staff.

Jennifer Loredo, formerly the director of community engagement, will get the new title of director of policy, legislative and intergovernmental affairs and Tracy Lopes, former director of policy will become the governor’s director of community and constituent engagement.

During Hobbs’ first couple of months in office, her administration quickly hired a lot of people, Bones said, so now they’re reevaluating roles to make sure that they are maximizing everyone’s strengths.

Berry resigned earlier this week after uproar over a gif she tweeted of a woman wielding two handguns from the 1980 movie “Gloria” with the caption “Us when we see transphobes” in a Twitter conversation about transphobia from progressives. 

She shared the tweet hours after a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville left three children and three adults dead and news outlets reported that the shooter was transgender.