Republican-led Arizona Senate panel rejects Hobbs' housing director, alleging plagiarism

Republican state lawmakers on a committee created earlier this year to vet Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' agency leaders have again sought to torpedo a nominee, recommending that Joan Serviss not be confirmed to lead the Arizona Department of Housing.

The Thursday hearing rekindled a political war of words between Hobbs and Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the chairman of the committee who has been one of Hobbs' harshest critics.

"This is squarely Katie Hobbs' fault," Hoffman said in casting the decisive vote that Serviss be rejected by the full Senate.

He blamed Hobbs' administration for not vetting what he described as plagiarism on Serviss' part in her prior work, though Serviss said her actions were common practice within advocacy communities.

Hobbs' spokesperson, Christian Slater, responded to the committee with a statement calling the committee's 3-2 vote a "disservice to the people of Arizona." Slater did not signal the governor's next steps.

"It’s now obvious that extremist Jake Hoffman and the DINO committee are interested in nothing more than playing political games and making a mockery of the nominee confirmation process," the statement reads. DINO is the acronym for the Committee on Director Nominations, which the Republican-majority Senate launched this year to scrutinize Hobbs' agency picks.

Who is Joan Serviss?

Serviss has run the Arizona Department of Housing since January, and she previously led the Arizona Housing Coalition, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing.

Facing the committee of three Republicans and two Democrats, she delivered an opening statement that touted her track record of bipartisan work, including serving on panels convened by former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and then-Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, to address the state's housing woes.

In an over three-hour hearing on Thursday, a dozen people — representing affordable housing developers and builders, veterans' service organizations and local governments — spoke in support of Serviss. Just one person was opposed because he was concerned Serviss would implement racial equity policies.

The five members of the Senate committee questioned Serviss for 105 minutes — a tense one-third of which was time Hoffman spent accusing Serviss of plagiarism in her prior role, when she sent copied-and-pasted letters often written by other advocacy groups to various government organizations supporting policies like food stamps and housing.

Hoffman focused on three letters — two of which he printed on 11-by-17 paper with paragraphs highlighted in red to hold up in front of the audience. One Serviss letter that copied lines from a Bloomberg story without attribution and was sent to federal housing authorities was so concerning to Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, that he said he changed his vote to oppose Serviss' confirmation.

More about the senator: Jake Hoffman, fake elector and Freedom Caucus leader, personifies conservative power

Serviss said the letters represented at most 5% of her work product at the coalition and repeatedly said it was common practice for advocates for a variety of issues to send such letters. At least three supporters, and Democrats on the committee, backed her up, affirming such copy-and-paste campaigns were common and often a way to make sure messages to policymakers were accurate.

Hoffman acknowledged to The Arizona Republic that he, as a lawmaker, commonly receives duplicate letters from citizens, but said Serviss' letters were different because she was representing herself as a subject matter expert. He said that showed Serviss was a "mouthpiece" for other groups who wouldn't stand up to Hobbs if Hobbs were to continue what he called her "despotic executive overreach."

Sen. Lela Alston, D-Phoenix, said Hoffman was being "extremely unfair" to Serviss. And in a statement after the hearing, she drew a comparison between Hoffman's effort to confirm it was Serviss' signature on the three letters and Hoffman's own signature on a document that attempted to sway the 2020 presidential election result.

Hoffman was one of 11 Republicans in Arizona who claimed to Congress they were legitimate electors for Donald Trump, though Arizonans voted for Joe Biden.

"Senator Hoffman would do the state well to worry about his own signature," Alston said.

What does the Arizona Department of Housing do?

The Arizona Department of Housing employs nearly 90 people and administers more than $190 million in state and federal housing dollars a year, according to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. This year, lawmakers earmarked $150 million for the state's Housing Trust Fund, which will fund various housing-related projects. Serviss said more than 400 individuals interested in applying for those funds had attended meetings.

The Senate committee met with the permission of Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, although the full Legislature has adjourned its work for the year. Petersen has said the full 30-member Senate will resume voting on Hobbs' nominees when it returns to work in January.

So far, just six of Hobbs' about two dozen nominees have been confirmed, which guarantees they can serve for longer than a year.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at [email protected] or 480-416-5669.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Senate panel rejects Gov. Katie Hobbs' housing director