The chairman of the Senate Committee on Director Nominations has proposed a law that would require director nominees who served under a previous governor’s administration to be renominated by the current governor and confirmed by the Senate.

Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, dropped a striker amendment to House Bill 2872, which would also require the president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority to be nominated by the governor and appear before the Senate.

Hoffman introduced the bill during the Senate Government Committee hearing on March 26. It passed along party lines with Republican support.

“Given Katie Hobbs’ track record of failing to properly vet her nominees to lead state agencies, it seemed reasonable that the Senate should have an advice and consent role for even those nominees that she chose to holdover from a previous administration,” Hoffman said in a text message. “This legislation will give the people of Arizona, through their elected senators, greater oversight and authority over who serves in these critical state roles.”

Hoffman, who has chaired the committee since 2023, has criticized a number of Hobbs’ nominees who were seeking confirmation from the Senate. During Hobbs’ first year as governor, the Committee on Director Nominations, dubbed DINO, rejected or held several of her nominations, leading Hobbs to say Hoffman was obstructing the process and rejecting nominees who were qualified for the roles they were appointed to fill.

More recently, Hoffman objected to Tom Cole’s nomination to lead the Registrar of Contractors because of concerns about Cole’s connections with labor unions. However, DINO still advanced Cole’s nomination before it was approved by the full Senate on April 2.

In February, the Senate rejected the nomination of Joan Serviss to lead the Department of Housing after Serviss was rejected by DINO in 2023.

Hoffman said in February the Senate had decided to suspend its rules and vote on the floor because the lawmakers compiled all the information they needed to reject Serviss’ appointment.

Hoffman has also criticized the Arizona Commerce Authority and proposed a striker bill last year that would’ve terminated the agency and transferred its powers and duties to other state agencies.

The president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority is currently appointed by the organization’s board of directors, which is chaired by the governor, and includes the Senate president, House speaker, the three state university presidents and executives representing the public and private sectors.

Hoffman said during the committee hearing on March 26 that the head of the Arizona Commerce Authority should be accountable to the governor and the Senate since the agency plays a huge role in the state’s economic development.

“They are overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called economic development funding, yet they do not have a gubernatorial appointed, gubernatorial accountable agency head,” he said.

The Arizona Commerce Authority was created in 2011 by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer to revitalize the state’s economy after the Great Recession. Sandra Watson, the agency’s president and CEO, has led the organization since 2012.

According to an agency spokeswoman, the ACA did not have a position on Hoffman’s bill.

Although the bill reflects Hoffman’s dissatisfaction with Hobbs’ nominees and the ACA, it could also affect some of the more tenured agency directors who predate the Hobbs administration.

“These agency directors have a lot of power and authority,” said Will Humble, former director at the Department of Health Services. “They have really wide latitude about the decisions.”

Humble, who led DHS for six years, agreed that agency directors should face renomination whenever a new governor’s administration takes office and would have had no problem going through that process when he was a director.

“Maybe that’s going to change the way they think through, how they use that authority,” he said.

If agency directors had to face a renomination process during every new administration, then the Legislature should be held accountable for making sure those nominees actually receive a hearing, he said.

“I think it’s partially good,” Humble said. “It could be made a lot better by making the president of the Senate more accountable to making sure that they’re at least hearing the nominees.”