The Veto Queen is back: Every bill Gov. Katie Hobbs rejected in 2026

It’s an election year. Can Gov. Katie Hobbs make history again?

We’re not talking about the Democrat’s reelection chances, though those prospects will hang over her every action this legislative session. We’re talking about her vetoes.

Two years ago, Hobbs broke the all-time vetoes record by swatting down 216 bills in her first two years in office, topping the career mark previously held by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano. Last session, Hobbs ran up the score, vetoing a whopping 174 bills, which is a single-session record. That brings her three-year total to 390 rejected bills, a number that will only swell in 2026. This legislative session has seen more bills introduced by lawmakers than ever before. Considering both chambers of the Arizona Legislature are controlled by Republicans, that will mean more veto fodder for Hobbs.

Phoenix New Times has tracked those vetoes for the past three years. This is the 2026 edition. If there’s to be a 2027 version, Hobbs will have to emerge triumphant in November.

January

Senate Bill 1106: Vetoed on Jan. 12. This was the first blow in an ongoing battle between Hobbs and Republican lawmakers. Arizona generally mirrors its state income tax code after its federal counterpart, but President Donald Trump’s beloved “One Big Beautiful Bill” significantly altered how federal taxes are to be paid. That will require a change to Arizona’s code, but Hobbs and Republicans have been unable to agree on what those changes should be. When the session started this year, Republicans jammed through a package that would hew closely to the federal changes, but Hobbs vetoed it because it copied many of the same tax breaks that Trump’s bill gives to high-income companies and individuals. “You have sent me partisan legislation that gives tax breaks to special interests while hiking taxes on working seniors struggling to get by,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter. “I urge you to rethink your partisan political theater.”

February

House Bill 2785: Vetoed on Feb. 12. This was Round 2 of the big tax fight. Republicans passed another bill that again adjusted the state’s tax code to mirror changes in federal tax law. Hobbs, who has favored adopting only some of the federal changes and excluding breaks for high earners and businesses, vetoed it again. “Again, I urge you to stop the partisan political theater,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter. Meanwhile, Arizonans are preparing their taxes, knowing that they’ll likely have to file adjustments whenever Hobbs and the GOP finally iron things out.

House Bill 2206: Vetoed on Feb. 20. This was one of several bills that aimed to crack down on the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” mandated that state SNAP programs cut their rate of administrative errors — that is, the times they over- or underpay SNAP benefits — to 6%, or else states would have to shoulder more of the program’s costs. Sponsored by GOP Rep. Nick Kupper, HB 2206 went even further: It required the Arizona Department of Economic Security to cut its error rate to 3% by 2030, or face budget cuts. In her veto letter, Hobbs blasted “out of touch politicians in Washington” who passed the federal SNAP cuts before touting the changes DES is already making to comply with the new requirements. She also criticized HB 2206 for creating more work for DES without any additional money behind it. “SNAP is the most robust and effective anti-hunger tool we have in Arizona — I know this firsthand,” Hobbs wrote. “It’s also the most secure, thanks to strong anti-fraud measures and oversight. Instead of creating more needless frustration for Arizona families, I invite you to join me in actually lowering costs for them.”

House Bill 2396: Vetoed on Feb. 20. This bill would have barred SNAP recipients from buying less-healthy items like soda and snack foods with their benefits. Hobbs has vetoed similar bills in past years, as she noted in her veto letter this time around. “I appreciate your intent to improve health outcomes of Arizonans,” she wrote. “Yet, instead of offering Arizonans more options to feed their families, this legislation would deprive them of the dignity and economic freedom enjoyed by other grocery shoppers.”

Senate Bills 1002, 1331 and 1334: Vetoed en masse on Feb. 20. These bills imposed more restrictions on the SNAP program:

• SB 1002 would have imposed additional requirements on DES for verifying SNAP recipients’ eligibility, but without additional funding to do so.
• SB 1331 would have required most SNAP recipients aged 60 or younger to work or participate in job training to receive benefits.
• SB 1334 would have prevented state agencies from issuing waivers for SNAP work requirements unless federal law required it or the Arizona Legislature signed off.

In her veto letter, Hobbs chastised Republicans for sending her “yet more unfunded mandates and not a dollar to help our state agencies implement these changes now, or to modernize our systems for the future.”

House Bill 2796: Vetoed on Feb. 20. This bill would have placed more requirements on the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System — or AHCCCS, the state’s Medicaid agency — when it comes to verifying participant eligibility. In her veto letter, Hobbs noted that AHCCCS already uses “a wide variety of effective and efficient member eligibility processes” and that the program was already working to adjust to new federal requirements that will go into effect in 2027. Thus, HB 2796 was “redundant,” she wrote.

Senate Bill 1036: Vetoed on Feb. 20. Like the SNAP and AHCCCS bills, this bill would have saddled DES with additional requirements when determining the eligibility of people receiving unemployment benefits, which would likely result in delays or denials for unemployed people. “This legislation creates unnecessary delays for workers, burdens for employers, and costs for the State,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter.

Senate Bill 1051: Vetoed on Feb. 20. This bill would have required hospitals in Arizona to ask patients about their citizenship status. It would also have required hospitals to report every quarter to the Arizona Department of Health Services data about the number of undocumented patients seeking care, as well as the cost of uncompensated care for undocumented patients. Though the bill specified that hospital intake forms should state that care would not be affected by a patient’s answer to the citizenship question, Democrats said merely asking it would make sick or injured undocumented people less likely to seek necessary medical care. In her veto letter, Hobbs noted that undocumented immigrants aren’t eligible for Medicaid, which the bill ostensibly was created to police. “This legislature continues to show a troubling inability to grasp some of the most basic functions of Medicaid,” Hobbs wrote.

Senate Bill 1056: Vetoed on Feb. 20. This bill would have eliminated any full-time positions at state agencies that have been open and unfilled for at least 150 days. “This bill does not accurately reflect the state’s merit-based hiring processes,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter, “and would deprive state agencies of their ability to best serve Arizonans.”

March

Senate Bill 1439: Vetoed on March 6. This bill would have resulted in the creation of a special license plate to honor slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Turning Point would have received $17 for every plate purchased through the Arizona Department of Transportation, and the bill was pushed by far-right state Sen. Jake Hoffman, whose consulting company does significant business with Turning Point. In her veto letter, Hobbs decried Kirk’s assassination as “a tragic and horrifying act of violence,” but she wrote that she vetoed the bill because it “insert(s) politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”

House Bill 2042: Vetoed on March 12. This bill would have prohibited the release of “any material within the borders of this state for solar radiation management,” which it defines as the “modification or attempted modification of atmospheric reflectivity that modifies the amount or intensity of sunlight that reaches the earth.” Basically, this is a chemtrails conspiracy theory bill, which Hobbs nodded at in her veto letter. She called the bill a “so-called solution to a nonexistent problem” that is “without science or data to back up its claims.” “I’m disappointed members of this legislature seem to be more focused on conspiracy theories than working with me to lower costs, secure the border, and grow Arizona’s economy.”

House Bill 2993: Vetoed on March 12. This bill is a nakedly political hit job on Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat. In January, right-wingers jumped on Mayes for saying (inelegantly) that the mix of masked, armed ICE agents and a state citizenry that is well armed and living in a Stand Your Ground state was a recipe for disaster. Some Republicans inaccurately characterized Mayes’ comments as endorsing violence against federal agents. HB 2993 is the Republicans’ strike back against Mayes — it would have stripped $6.4 million from the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection-Consumer Fraud Revolving Fund to give to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and would also have exempted DPS from having to use Mayes as its official attorney rather than seeking outside counsel. Even though Hobbs criticized Mayes for her remarks, she vetoed the bill as a “political stunt,” noting that she has suggested an alternate source to boost the DPS budget that doesn’t rob funds that would be used to educate Arizonans about scams and fraud.

House Bill 4115: Vetoed on March 12. This bill continues the long tradition of Republicans trying to make it harder for citizen-led initiatives to succeed. Among other things, it would have required that paid petition circulators — a common and uncontroversial feature of any initiative campaign — verbally identify the state they live in and that they are a paid circulator when approaching anyone with a petition, which critics noted would essentially take up all the brief time circulators have to capture a passerby’s attention. In her veto letter, Hobbs wrote that the bill “undermines” the initiative process “by imposing unrealistic requirements on participants and by opening the door for special interests to silence voters’ voices.”

Senate Bill 1010: Vetoed on March 27. This bill would have renamed Loop 202 as “Charlie Kirk Loop 202,” in honor of the slain right-wing activist and podcaster who called Arizona home. As she did in her veto letter for a bill that would have created a Charlie Kirk license plate, Hobbs called Kirk’s assassination “tragic” and “horrifying,” but said the bill falls short “by inserting politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.” She also criticized the bill for bypassing the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names, which is tasked with making those kinds of decisions. Republicans, including gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs and Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, have blasted Hobbs’ veto, noting that the state has highways named after Democrats, particularly former Congressman Ed Pastor. However, unlike Kirk, Pastor served in elected office.