Supporters of Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA won’t get to declare it publicly with a state-issued license plate.
Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation Friday that would have authorized the Arizona Department of Transportation to create a special license plate that Arizonans could purchase as a memorial to Kirk, the controversial Arizona resident and conservative political activist who was assassinated last year while speaking to college students in Utah. The sales would have helped raise money for Turning Point USA, the organization he founded.
The Democratic governor, in her 12th veto so far this legislative session, called what happened to Kirk “tragic and a horrifying act of violence.”
“In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box,” she said in her veto message.
But Hobbs said she could not support the license-plate measure, saying it is “inserting politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
In Arizona, any nonprofit can ask to have a special license plate. What it takes is a state law specifically authorizing it — which is what Queen Creek Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman had sought for the Kirk proposal — plus $32,000 from the nonprofit for ADOT to start the process. Those who want to buy the plate then pay an extra $25 a year, with $17 of that going to the sponsoring organization and the rest to the state.
Approved plates promote causes ranging from public television and the Make-A-Wish foundation to one that promotes the national motto “In God We Trust” to raise month for the Christian-related Alliance Defending Freedom and another with the message “Choose Life” that raises money for the anti-abortion Arizona Life Coalition.
Hobbs made no mention of any of those other plates in her veto message.
Hoffman, a supporter of Kirk, criticized the governor for claiming the proposal was “inserting politics” into the process. Instead, he said it is Hobbs who is guilty of “grotesque partisanship.”
