Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R) announced Wednesday that she is temporarily serving as acting governor of the Grand Canyon State.
"I have been notified that I will be serving as Acting Governor beginning later this evening until mid-morning tomorrow," Yee said in a statement, adding that she is "pleased to step into this role."
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The announcement raised questions because of the mysterious circumstances surrounding Yee's temporary ascension.
It's not usual for top state officials to be tapped as "acting governor" when a governor leaves the state or is temporarily incapacitated, such as for medical procedures. But what is unusual about this instance is that Yee's position as state treasurer is third in the Arizona line of succession after the Arizona secretary of state and state attorney general, according to the Arizona state constitution.
What is also unusual is that it's not clear exactly why Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) stepped aside.
Typically, when governors temporarily transfer powers, they explain why it is necessary and to whom the powers are being transferred. Hobbs, in fact, did this just two months ago when she left Arizona to attend a national governors' conference.
According to the Daily Independent, Hobbs left the state on Sunday. But it's unclear why she left, and her office did not announce a temporary transfer of powers to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D).
Moreover, the newspaper reported that Fontes was scheduled to leave Arizona on Wednesday and that Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) "is also gone." That would explain why Yee became acting governor and will hold that position through Thursday because, according to the newspaper, Hobbs is slated to return on Thursday.
TheBlaze reached out to the Arizona Treasury Office and Gov. Hobbs' office for clarification. Neither office responded by press time because Arizona is three hours behind EST. TheBlaze will update this story if we receive a response.
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) is openly defying a recent Supreme Court ruling.
After the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado cannot compel business owners to make expressive speech that violates their religious beliefs, Mayes issued a statement saying Arizona's public accommodation law, which is similar to Colorado's, will still be enforced.
"[A] woefully misguided majority of the United States Supreme Court has decided that businesses open to the public may, in certain circumstances, discriminate against LGBTQ+ Americans," Mayes said.
On that basis, Mayes declared, "I will continue to enforce Arizona’s public accommodation law to its fullest extent."
"Arizona law prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation, including discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity," she explained. "If any Arizonan believes that they have been the victim of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, or ancestry in a place of public accommodation, they should file a complaint with my office."
Mayes, moreover, expressed agreement with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the dissent in the case, that it is "profoundly wrong" to suggest "the Constitution gives businesses the right to discriminate."
In the dissent, Sotomayor claimed, "Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class."
The problem — both with Sotomayor's dissent and Mayes' framing of the ruling — is that the Supreme Court did not write anyone a license to discriminate.
The stipulations in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis — facts that both sides agree to —dismantle this narrative. The stipulations included the agreed facts that:
Based upon those stipulations, the Supreme Court ruled that "the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees."
Thus Mayes is essentially spreading disinformation about the ruling as she boasts about ignoring it.
The Supreme Court said nothing about permissible discrimination. What it did say is that governments cannot discriminate against closely held personal beliefs by forcing citizens to make and promote expressive speech they disagree with.
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