SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Two of the four candidates running to be Arizona’s first lieutenant governor met in a debate Monday night.
The Republican nominee, former state Sen. Sine Kerr, and the No Labels Party’s Angela Harrolle Mohan found some common ground but disagreed on major issues, such as taxes and water.
But the debate also highlighted who wasn’t there: former Mesa Mayor John Giles, the longtime Republican-turned-independent who is Gov. Katie Hobbs’ running mate.
“Katie Hobbs has been a disaster economically for Arizona, and under her tenure, just in the last year, we have lost over 100,000 jobs,” Kerr said.
Green Party candidate Lisa Castillo also skipped the debate.
Rather than engage in her differences with Mohan, Kerr focused her attacks on Hobbs’ record – hits that went unanswered.
“Katie Hobbs, again, has been a real disaster on our water issues for Arizona and has done a huge disservice by putting out the message that Arizona is running out of water, and nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.
The state faces major water cuts under new operating guidelines from the federal government for the Colorado River. A multistate agreement on how to share the river’s water expired Sept. 30, and the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states failed to reach a new deal after years of negotiations.
But Arizona faces the largest cuts because the state has the lowest priority for Colorado River water, something Arizona agreed to in order to build the Central Arizona Project canal system in the 1960s.
Kerr, a longtime dairy farmer in the West Valley who now raises beef with her husband, said Arizona has water sources other than the Colorado River, such as groundwater, brackish water and the Verde River system.
“Arizona has been a leader in water management, in water conservation, and that's why we are in the position that we are today,” she said.
Kerr said she supports federal legislation proposed by her running mate, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, for $19 billion in infrastructure and water-supply expansion for the Colorado River system.
Mohan said she supports such water-augmentation projects, even if they’re costly. But she also said Arizona needs to treat the issue with more urgency, pointing to Nevada.
“One of the things – it's not a sexy thing that people like to say, but it's called toilet to tap,” she said. “They reuse, purify and clean every drop of water that they have up there, or as much as they possibly can. And we need to consider opportunities like that.”
After the debate, Kerr told reporters Arizona has been using recycled water for years, such as to water golf courses. When asked whether the state should invest in more projects like a controversial proposal in Scottsdale to use such water, Kerr said: "You know, that's going to be a local decision for them, and I think that's where we need to leave it," she said.
Mohan told reporters Kerr had made a good point about how Arizona excels at water management but reiterated that the state should look at how it could reuse water.
"We are absolutely going to need to invest in reuse, cleaning, and purification of our water," she said. "So it may not be a new technology, but it's a borrowed technology from other areas that have already utilized such systems to make sure that they have a better return."
First lieutenant governor in Arizona
Voters will elect the state’s first lieutenant governor this year after passing Proposition 131 in 2022 to create the office.
The lieutenant governor, who will serve in the governor’s Cabinet in a role of the governor’s choice, will be next in line to the governor and will assume office if the governor dies, resigns, is removed, or permanently cannot carry out the duties of the office.
Since Arizona became a state, the secretary of state has been next in the line of succession. And that has meant control of the Governor’s Office could change parties when a governor leaves, such as in 2009, when Republican Jan Brewer became governor when Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, resigned to become U.S. Homeland Security secretary.
Kerr, who was a state senator in the first years of Hobbs’ term, said the lieutenant governor role could restore collaboration between the Legislature and the Governor’s Office.
"I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that any type of communication and strong leadership was totally absent as I tried to work with her administration on different bills,” she said. “It was incredibly frustrating.”
Mohan said she hopes to make the Governor’s Office more accessible to both the public and the Legislature, an office that “can listen and lead together to have a more positive and more holistic approach to the way we move forward in the administration.”
She said she and the No Labels Party nominee for governor, Teri Hourihan, don’t always see eye-to-eye, adding that they are partners who complement each other.
“We don't need to be mirror images of each other, nor do we need to be an echo chamber,” she said. “I don't think the citizens want that. I think they do want independent thought.”
Kerr also said she and Biggs are a team.
“My responsibility is to ensure that I am promoting, supporting and amplifying his policy priorities,” she said. “But he lets me have a part in that as well, so it's ours together, and it just has worked really well.”
Biggs, Hourihan and Green Party gubernatorial candidate Risa Lombardo will debate Tuesday.
Hobbs, who also declined to debate Kari Lake in 2022, is the first major gubernatorial candidate in Arizona to not participate in debates since the 1950s.
“I believe face-to-face interactions with Arizonans are more effective than a stage that is designed for nothing but political soundbites and theater,” Hobbs told reporters Monday.
Voters will soon get their say: Early voting begins Wednesday, and mail ballots also start to go out that day.
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