Capitol Roundup: Hobbs close to breaking her veto record

The Legislature took the week off to work on the budget, but Gov. Katie Hobbs' signing pen and veto stamp still got a workout.

The intrigue: Hobbs is closing in on Arizona's single-session veto record, which she set in 2023 with 143 bills.

• This year, she's vetoed 137, 48 this week.

Among this week's vetos:

🌎 Add a geography requirement for students to graduate from high school, including "instruction on the Gulf of America" after President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico this year.

🏨 Mandate that hotels post signs to inform guests if they house people experiencing homelessness.

🏥 Force hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status and citizenship.

⚧ Bar transgender students from using school bathrooms or changing rooms that don't align with their biological sex.

• Hobbs also vetoed bills prohibiting school employees from using students' preferred pronouns without their parents' permission and making health care professionals legally liable for the cost of reversing transition procedures.

🚫 Prohibit municipalities, counties, universities and community colleges from having diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Hobbs also signed plenty of legislation this week, including bills to:

🚨 Create missing persons' alerts for Native Americans in response to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.

• The measure is known as Emily's Law, named after Emily Pike, a 14-year-old San Carlos Apache girl found murdered in February after leaving a Mesa group home the month before.

💻 Require pornography websites to verify users are at least 18. Parents whose minor children access websites and people whose identifying information is retained or transmitted by an entity that performs age verification can seek civil penalties in court.

🔌 Allow utilities to transfer debt to lower-interest bonds, giving them more flexibility in financing power plants.

• Hobbs called the bill a "common sense, middle of the road solution" to save customers money.
• But some Democrats, along with the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, argued it will pass new costs to customers and keep outdated coal plants operating, and are considering suing to block the law.