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“I’m Katie Hobbs, and the rules don’t apply to me.”
That might as well run at the end of the next campaign ad featuring Arizona’s governor. Since taking office in 2023, Hobbs has been building a rap sheet of scandals that would make Minnesota Governor Tim Walz blush.
From one of the largest Medicaid fraud scandals in Arizona history to a pay-to-play scheme that has put her administration under active criminal investigation, Hobbs has taken corruption to new heights.
Corruption at the highest state levels?
Be informed, not misled.
On January 15th of this year, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club published a headline that read, "Move Over, Tim Walz. Katie Hobbs Is Now the Most Scandal-Plagued Governor on the Ballot in 2026."
Over the past month, Minnesota has been hard at work to set the gold standard for jaw-dropping fraud scandals under the watch of Democrat Governor Tim Walz. The Somali daycare scandal has turned the state into a national punchline—hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars stolen in plain sight while Kamala Harris’ favorite “masculine” governor looked the other way.
Now, with Walz stepping aside from this reelection bid, a new contender for “most scandal-plagued governor on the 2026 ballot” has emerged: Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs. While Minnesota’s scandals have dominated headlines, Hobbs has been busy compiling a rap sheet that rivals what happened in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But unlike Walz, Hobbs and her administration are under active criminal investigation.
The Free Enterprise Club continued, "The list of Hobbs’ scandals is a mile long and begins at the start of her tenure as governor. At that time, Hobbs set up a shady slush fund to provide donors with a conduit to buy political favor from her administration. While setting up and managing the fund, Hobbs illegally used public resources—like the state’s website—to solicit money for her inauguration. And she also tried to stop the disclosure of the names of those who donated to her inaugural fund."
And there was this: "After immense political pressure, Hobbs finally released the names of the donors. One of the names of the groups on the list was Sunshine Residential Homes Inc., a for-profit company that contracts with the State of Arizona. Sunshine Residential donated $100,000 to the secret fund, which was suspicious enough. But after some additional digging by local reporters, an even deeper level of corruption was revealed—an alleged pay-to-play scheme between Hobbs and the group home."
While Tim Walz’s fraud crisis may have shocked the nation, the controversies surrounding Katie Hobbs cut closer to the governor’s office itself—donor favoritism, insider deals, massive fraud, and an alleged pay-to-play scheme currently under criminal investigation.
9-3-2026
"Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has amended the same campaign finance report 10 times. Somewhere along the way, more than $1 million in reported small-dollar contributions disappeared."
This is a spreadsheet of her filings and amendments.
The Daily Caller flagged the numbers Monday. Elect Katie Hobbs originally reported $1,426,552 in exempt small contributions for the second quarter of 2026. Those are donations under $100 that can be reported in aggregate. The first amended report carried the same number.
Then the number went to zero.
An example of this was illustrated prominently in the media earlier this year, when investigative reporters discovered that ActBlue, the primary fundraising platform for Democrats, allegedly misattributed around $100,000 in donations across thousands of individual political contributions over five years to one Elizabeth Waffle, an 88-year-old woman in Michigan living in a trailer with limited income. ActBlue allegedly misattributed more than 13,000 donations that occurred once or multiple times each day.
The complaint also questioned the number of contributors listed as “not employed” across the three campaigns’ 2026 filings to date.
Below are the total number of instances in which individual contributors were listed as “not employed” for the three report filings due so far this year and the four report filings made in 2025. These instances exclude retirees and may include individuals who contributed more than once.
Put Hobbs, Mayes, and Fontes together, and there are more than 76,500 "not employed" or "unemployed" donor entries this year.
Nobody needs a job to donate to a political campaign. But 46,335 entries attached to one candidate get more interesting when that candidate's quarterly report has already been amended 10 times and more than $1 million vanished from one reported category.
It seems that this is not the only donation problem trailing her into November.
Mayes announced Aug. 21 that she would not prosecute Hobbs after a two-year bribery investigation involving Sunshine Residential Homes. The company gave more than $550,000 toward efforts supporting Hobbs and later received a special rate increase and a higher-paid state contract. Investigators said they found no evidence of the quid pro quo needed to bring a bribery charge.
Mayes' criminal division chief wrote:
After two years of investigation, consisting of 12 interviews, reviews of campaign-finance records, procurement records, bank documents, and State emails and chats, totaling over one terabyte of data and more than 100,000 documents, the investigation has not uncovered any evidence of the necessary quid pro quo to support a bribery charge.
The two matters are separate. But Hobbs is running for reelection with another set of campaign finance questions hanging over her.
This time the numbers are coming directly from her own filings.
Takeaway
- Lord Acton famously noted that power tends to corrupt, while absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- George Orwell argued that electorates who choose corrupt leaders are accomplices rather than victims.
- Aesop and James A. Garfield both critiqued how societies or systems tolerate or elevate major wrongdoers while punishing minor thieves.
Corruption is not new to the human race. It became rooted in human experience after the "Fall of Man."
- The Corruption of the Earth Before the Flood (Genesis 6): The earth became filled with violence and moral decay because "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Genesis 6:12), leading God to judge mankind and spare only Noah.
- The Sins of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18–19): These cities became so deeply corrupted by wickedness and sodomy that God sent angels to destroy them, rescuing righteous Lot.
- Eli's Corrupt Sons (1 Samuel 2 and 8): Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, served as priests at Shiloh but abused their office, taking bribes, sleeping with women at the tabernacle door, and treating the Lord's offering with contempt.
- Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 21): King Ahab and his wife Jezebel promoted widespread idolatry of Baal, murdered Naboth through a corrupted legal process, and stole his vineyard.
- Judas Iscariot's Betrayal (Matthew 26:14–16): One of Jesus' own disciples was corrupted by greed, accepting thirty pieces of silver from the chief priests to betray Jesus.
If people turn away from God and His biblical principles and teachings, corruption fills the void.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Faithful. Be Prayerful.
