Talk about sour grapes, hypocrisy, and sexist double standards.
That’s what Arizonans got yesterday (April 17, 2025) when House Appropriations Chair David Livingston, the MAGA Republican who said it was necessary to cut programs to feed needy children and stacked the committee deck just two days ago to thwart a bipartisan compromise on a supplemental funding bill to help disable children, cried foul on the House floor after Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs announced a moratorium on bill signings.
In his remarks, Mr. Livingston asserted, with Democratic leaders Oscar De Los Santos and Nancy Gutierrez standing behind him, that:
“But it doesn’t surprise me the political games that the Democrat party is playing. Because it starts at the top of the ticket. And that’s the Governor And the Governor childishly came out today and said I’m not signing any more bills because she’s not getting her way. Too bad. Well, it doesn’t surprise me fellow Democrats of this body followed her lead, But it doesn’t surprise me that she did that because she’s not getting her way and she will not get her way. And frankly, Republicans don’t care about sending her hundreds and hundreds of bills. We do care about sending her a balanced budget, That uses real numbers and not fake numbers like she sent us in January. Numbers that didn’t add up in January. So we will send her a budget. We are planning on sending her a DDD supplemental bill too. And she can work with us…or she can sit up in her Ivory Tower with glasses on and drink her wine and not worry about it…”
The Governor being childish and Democrats playing games.
This is rich coming from the man, as Representative Lorena Austin reminded people on the House Floor, who with Matt Gress, stacked the committee deck to screw over a bipartisan measure to help children with disabilities.
Fake numbers! Talk about blaming the other side for something you have done. How did those low ball projections for Empowerment Scholarship Private School Accounts for the wealthy work out? How have those tax cuts for the rich worked out for the state’s fiscal ledger and bottom line?
It was at that moment when whiny Representative Livingston made the reference to the Governor being an alcoholic that Representative Gutierrez requested a point of order, saying, with Livingston appearing to make obnoxious facial expressions that “No member shall be permitted to indulge in personalities, use language or personally offensive. He said that the Governor would drink her wine and that is personally offensive to me to the highest ranked person in our state.”
The Speaker Pro Tem presiding at the time urged Livingston to be “respectful at all times.”
Later, in response to a request for comment from Blog for Arizona, Representative Gutierrez added:
“I found Livingston’s remarks about our Governor not only offensive, but sexist. The fact that he doubled down and continued his rant showed a lack of respect that I had to call out. They are intimidated by strong women who are not looking for their approval. I spoke out and stopped him on behalf of every woman in Arizona.”
What else should Arizonans expect from White Nationalist MAGA Males?
Governor Hobbs’s Communications Director Christian Slater also expressed his repulsiveness of Livingston’s comments, writing in a press release:
“Governor Hobbs will not apologize for standing up against shameful attacks on services for Arizonans with disabilities. Representative Livingston is engaging in political warfare and putting Arizonans with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other disabilities directly in his crosshairs as he simultaneously fights to give himself a 500% per diem pay raise. The Representative is unable, or unwilling, to work productively to solve the crisis of his own creation, to the point that he has been forced to stack his own committee meeting to pass his unserious funding proposal. The governor can tolerate his personal attacks, but cannot tolerate his attacks on the people of Arizona. Representative Livingston needs to listen to the bipartisan leaders who oppose his shameful political theater, put partisan politics aside and do what’s right for our state.”
“Governor Hobbs is committed to working on a bipartisan solution that will fund the DDD program and allow Arizonans with disabilities to continue to receive the life saving services that they need. But it is clear that a few extremist members of the legislative majority are more interested in launching personal attacks than solving the problems that the people of Arizona face. The governor stands by her commitment to vetoing any bill not already on her desk until the legislature has sent a serious, bipartisan bill to protect services for Arizonans with disabilities.”
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.