No crime, plenty of rot: Hobbs’ secrecy and GOP outrage could lead to deeper voter distrust

Criminally, Gov. Katie Hobbs may be cleared. But politically and ethically, this whole thing with Sunshine Residential still stinks royally.

And, no, it’s not because the person who won’t charge her criminally is fellow Democrat Kris Mayes, the state’s attorney general.

It has a lot to do with Hobbs’ secrecy about a state contractor and political donor who conveniently got a $4 million annual rate hike and with Republicans weaponizing the mess to score votes in November.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Sunshine Residential Homes has a contract with the Arizona Department of Child Safety to provide foster care services.

Company owner Simon Kottoor gave $200,000 to the Arizona Democratic Party in 2022 and later gave $100,000 to Hobbs’ inaugural fund. In all, donations from Sunshine and others connected to the company have totaled more than $580,000, according to media reporting.

The company operates group homes for vulnerable children in Arizona and it’s the state’s biggest foster care contractor. 

Kottoor had reportedly been asking for more money before Hobbs took office. Former DCS Director Michael Faust told investigators that Kottoor told him he’d put in a good word with Hobbs to keep his job if Faust were to approve a rate hike. He didn’t budge.

But a few months after Hobbs arrived, Sunshine Residential Homes did get a hefty rate hike under Faust’s replacement, David Lujan.

Republicans cried foul. Sen. T.J. Shope accused Hobbs of pay-to-play politics and demanded an investigation.

After two years investigating, Mayes concluded last month that there was insufficient evidence of a quid pro quo to charge Hobbs criminally. 

The governor has maintained she didn’t talk to her staffers about increasing the Sunshine Residential Homes contract.

This won’t be the end of it because there’re still separate investigations, including one by the state Auditor General’s Office, with help from Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, and another by Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives, who hired a lawyer with Trump ties to do it.

Mayes explained, convincingly, that her investigation was narrowed in scope as dictated by law.

In other words, prosecutors must prove more than ugly optics.

But politically and ethically, are we really supposed to believe massive donations didn’t weigh on anyone inside the Hobbs administration or that staffers truly operate in a vacuum?  

That’s ridiculous. Lujan, a former state legislator, wasn’t a political novice, and neither he nor his staffers needed the governor to spell out every expectation for them to understand the political environment they were working in.

Lujan’s top staffers reportedly discussed Sunshine Residential Homes’ donations to Hobbs before they approved the rate hike. Mayes said in her findings those remarks didn’t prove a link to Hobbs.

Republicans are again crying foul. Congressman Andy Biggs, who’s running against Hobbs, called Mayes’ findings “whitewashing obvious corruption.”

Senate President Warren Petersen, who’s challenging Mayes, called her findings a “cover-up.” But he isn’t producing new evidence and he isn’t saying whether he’d charge the governor if he were attorney general.

That makes me think their outrage over the alleged pay-to-play scheme is just a campaign tactic to win votes in November.

On the other hand, the governor herself hasn’t exactly been a beacon of transparency about her political donations.

Hobbs hasn’t disclosed details of her inaugural and legal funds beyond what is legally required. We learned details through media reports and the attorney general’s investigation. She also declined to sit for an in-person interview with Mayes’ office, fueling Republicans’ attacks.

And when reporters asked her recently, she refused to answer, pointing instead to a letter her campaign had sent to Mayes.

“I’m not going to get into this with you. I said what I said,” she told reporters earlier this month.

Secrecy isn’t a defense. Neither is partisan outrage without proof.

Mayes gave Arizona a legal answer. Hobbs owes Arizona a public one. And Republicans certainly owe voters proof to back up their claims of corruption.