Hobbs, Biggs trade claims of failing to protect crime victims

But the record about what has become Exhibit No. 1 for Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' claim that Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs is unfit for governor may not be as clear as the incumbent is claiming.

Hobbs has made a point of attacking Biggs, a former state senator, over 2013 legislation in Arizona that would have allowed the state to disband the police department in the polygamous community of Colorado City amid allegations its officers were taking their orders from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That measure, backed by then-Attorney General Tom Horne, a Republican, was approved by the state House by a 52-7 margin. But it died in the state Senate, where Biggs was president.

"Andy Biggs has a really disturbing pattern of protecting pedophiles,'' Hobbs said last week, referring to allegations the police department in Colorado City was ignoring reports that FLDS church members were entering into plural "marriages'' with girls as young as 9. The governor said the legislation, sponsored by then-Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Scottsdale Republican, "would have reined in the pedophile cult in Colorado City that was abusing women and children, forcing children into marriage'' but was "blocked'' by Biggs.

It took more than another two years before the U.S. Justice Department stepped in with a lawsuit against both Colorado City and its twin border town of Hildale, Utah, over police misconduct. A federal judge ordered new oversight into not just the police department but municipal practices of denying housing to non-FLDS members.

There is no question but that Biggs was opposed to the legislation. He told Capitol Media Services last week that he believed it was poorly written, citing opposition to it by the Fraternal Order of Police.

But there is nothing in the record showing that Biggs was personally responsible for burying the legislation.

What the record does show, however, is that after the measure was approved by the House, it went to the Senate, where Biggs used his power as Senate president to assign it to two committees for hearings.

That double-assigning move was unusual at the time for the Senate. Most bills needed review by just one committee; the exception being anything that required an appropriation of public funds.

Any bill doubly assigned needs to be approved by both committees, creating a second hurdle — and a second place where a bill can die.

But it didn't get that far.

The first assignment was to the Public Safety Committee, whose chair, Chester Crandell, did not even give it a hearing.

Crandell told Capitol Media Services at the time it was his decision to quash the measure. He said he was not convinced it was a realistic solution to the problem of police enforcing church discipline, including going after women who fled polygamous marriages. Anyway, he said, seizing control of the police department provided only a temporary solution.

Biggs said he does not recall whether he had any particular conversation with Crandell about whether he should give the measure a hearing. Crandell died in 2014.

Ugenti-Rita, currently a candidate for the Scottsdale city council, declined to discuss the issue.

But she made it clear a decade ago, when Biggs first ran for Congress, that she thought he was the force behind the death of her legislation about Colorado City and also held a grudge over her very visible push for its passage.

"After I came up with a viable solution to deal with the systemic corruption in Colorado City, (Biggs) treated me so bad I couldn't represent my constituents the way I wanted to,'' she told The Arizona Republic at the time.

"I don't remember anything about this particular issue,'' Biggs said when asked about his discussions with Ugenti-Rita on the Colorado City legislation.

Asked about any actions he might have taken to undermine her other bills, he responded, "I'm not going to disclose what we talked about on other issues. I think that those are private conversations.''

Ugenti-Rita, in her 2016 comments to The Republic, said the death of her House-passed legislation in the Senate had profound effects.

"Women and children suffered three years longer than they should have because he protected the bad guys,'' she said, noting that it took that long for the Justice Department to intervene. "That's what bothers me.''

She isn't the only one who took aim at Biggs.

In a 2016 email to constituents, Republican Rep. Kelly Townsend described what she said was  Biggs' reaction after she went on the radio in 2013 to express her frustration about the death of Ugenti-Rita's proposal.

"The rest of my bills died that session,'' Townsend wrote, something she blamed on Biggs, who had the power as Senate president to quash measures he did not like. She said Biggs later admitted to her he was angry with her "and I should have never gone on the radio to discuss the issue in the first place.''

Townsend declined to discuss the issue now.

Biggs: Bill was far too broad

In opposing the Colorado City legislation — and whatever he may or may not have done to kill it — Biggs aligned himself with a small group of House lawmakers who voted against the bill, insisting there were no problems with the police department there. 

"I would really challenge anyone to present to me documentation, absolute fact, anything that's in writing that suggests Colorado City is a rogue department and that we have to create an entire system of police oversight because of the problems we've had with Colorado City,'' said Rep. Doris Goodale, a Republican from Kingman whose district included the polygamous community. "It's all built on hearsay, it's all built on conjecture from the Attorney General's Office,'' then run by Horne.

And during floor debate, Rep. Justin Pierce, R-Mesa, said the legislation "seeks to fix this problem that I can't see exists.''

That, however, wasn't the conclusion reached by a federal judge in 2017.

Among the judge's findings was that those working for the marshal's office — what the community called its police department — "turned a blind eye to criminal activity involving FLDS church leaders or members.'' The judge said police ignored underage marriages, unauthorized distribution of prescription drugs, and food stamp fraud.

Those findings led the judge to order some of the same actions that could have occurred in 2013 had the Ugenti-Rita bill become law: revamping of the police department policies, adoption of new internal affairs and hiring practices, bringing on two new officers, and hiring both a police-practices consultant and a mentor for the police chief.

And the Justice Department, in a 2017 news release, pointed out that the Arizona Police Officers Standards and Training board had recently voted to revoke the certifications of six of the department's seven officers, including the chief marshal.

Biggs, in speaking last week with Capitol Media Services, said he doesn't remember a lot about the 2013 legislation.

He does recall talking with House Republicans who were opposed.

Biggs said he came to the same conclusion they did — that the bill was too broad. While the legislation was built with the issue of Colorado City in mind, he said it actually could have affected any police department in the state, allowing them to be dissolved.

John Kavanagh, who was the House majority leader at the time, said that was precisely the point.

In the measure approved by the House, the trigger would have been when any department had a certain number or percentage of officers whose AzPOST certification was revoked.

To take control of a department also would have required a finding by AzPOST that there was "systemic misconduct or mismanagement'' within a police department. Even at that point, the final word would have been up to the county board of supervisors.

Kavanagh, in defending the measure at the time, said Arizona should have some system to deal with police departments that are not doing their jobs.

"The fact that we don't have a procedure in place is why we had so much problems in Colorado City,'' he said.

"A rogue police department is a very dangerous thing,'' said Kavanagh, a retired police officer. "A rogue police department can trample on the rights and civil liberties of citizens and can leave a population not only unprotected but sometimes victimized by the rogue police department. So it is extremely important that we have these mechanisms to deal with these departments before they go rogue.''

Kavanagh, now the Senate majority leader, said he did not recall the issues and the debate.

Biggs says Hobbs' own vetoes hurt victims

Biggs said he has an "unassailable'' record of protecting women and children during his time in both the Legislature and in Congress. He was clearly miffed that questions were being asked about this 2013 issue — even though the problems in Colorado City were national news.

"You're actually giving credence to the story,'' he said. "I'm the one who read the bill. I checked them for constitutionality. I also went after every bill to see if it would work.''

Biggs himself has not been shy in going after Hobbs on what he said have been her failures to protect victims.

In 2023, her first year as governor, she vetoed legislation sponsored by Sine Kerr, who is now Biggs' running mate. It would have expanded the kinds of offenses that would result in someone's name being published on an internet sex offender website maintained by the Department of Public Safety. Hobbs, in her veto message, said the website already lists "the most dangerous.''

That same year she rejected another measure that would have required anyone who must register as a sex offender and who was the parent or legal guardian of a student in a public or private school to notify school officials about that registration status. Hobbs wrote in her veto that DPS is "best equipped'' to oversee community notification.

And in 2024 Hobbs nixed legislation that would have prohibited someone on lifetime probation for a sex offense from petitioning to eliminate that status for at least 10 years — 20 for more serious crimes. In her veto, Hobbs said it would "strip away judicial discretion.''

Asked about all those decisions at a news conference last week as she was attacking Biggs, Hobbs brushed aside the questions. 

"I can't speak to the specifics of all those bills because I don't remember the details,'' she said of the measures from the last three years.

But Hobbs did remember what happened 13 years ago when she said Biggs blocked the 2013 legislation.

And Hobbs had no problem recalling other votes Biggs took as a state legislator, such as his opposition to a bill in 2005 that repealed a law that had provided for lesser penalties for rape if the victim was a spouse.

Biggs said Hobbs was "cherry picking'' long-ago votes while ignoring her own more recent vetoes.

Hobbs said there are more recent examples, citing a 2025 vote that Biggs took in a U.S. House subcommittee against a vote to subpoena Justice Department records related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Biggs said he had been very vocal in pushing for the release of Epstein records during the Biden administration. He said the 2025 measure he opposed was a hastily crafted handwritten proposal that was "wholly legally inadequate'' and he pointed out that later that year he voted in the House for the Epstein Files Transparency Act.