Horne ‘surprised’ by anti-trans bill vetoes that happen every year

What's it they say about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Might be time for Arizona schools chief Tom Horne to get checked out.

On Monday, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two bills from Republican state Sen. John Kavanagh that targeted transgender kids. One, Senate Bill 1002, would have required teachers and school staff to use only the names assigned to students at birth and the pronouns that correspond with their biological sex. The other, Senate Bill 1003, would have barred transgender students from using the bathrooms, locker rooms and showers that correspond with their gender identities.

"This bill will not increase opportunity, security or freedom for Arizonans," Hobbs wrote her veto letters for each.

Both bills are right-wing culture war bills that attack largely non-existent issues and create issues of their own.

Though Kavanagh and Horne have cast the bathroom bill as an effort to protect girls, there are few examples of girls being at any real risk because a transgender student uses the same bathroom. (And, as Save Our Schools executive director Beth Lewis pointed out last year, no students really shower at school these days.) The pronoun bill, which requires schools to notify parents if students start going by different pronouns, would out transgender students to trans-hostile parents who might then put their child's safety at risk.

As the bill numbers suggest, Kavanagh raced to file them the second the legislative session opened. And indeed, he has filed essentially identical bills each of the previous two years. And each of the previous two years, Hobbs has vetoed them.

In his own curdled rhetoric after the vetoes, Kavanagh acknowledged that history. "Governor Hobbs continues to push 'gender neutrality' as a way to win votes from her extremist liberal community at the expense of exposing vulnerable children to sexual violence, harassment, and emotional distress," he wrote.

Yet Horne, who has pushed the anti-trans agenda just as hard as Kavanagh has, seems to have been caught off guard.

“It’s surprising to me that the governor did not recognize the legislation’s value in promoting common sense, girls’ privacy, safety, and the rights of parents to be fully informed about what their children are doing while at school or related activities," wrote the state superintendent of public instruction in a press release.

When asked the reason for Horne's surprise, Department of Education spokesperson Doug Nick emailed the above quote from Horne's release, adding that "It’s still an issue of parents’ rights and the safety of school-aged girls." After this story was first published, Nick responded to a follow-up question about why Hobbs' continued opposition should at all be surprising. After quoting this story's first two paragraphs about the definition of insanity, Nick added, "Feel free to apply that same standard to vetoing the same legislation over and over again. I’ll wait."

That response does hit upon a certain truth. After all, just as July follows June every year, Hobbs strikes down Kavanagh's anti-trans bills. Maybe when it happens again next year, Horne won't be so surprised.