Andy Biggs picks former Arizona lawmaker as running mate

In an announcement Friday morning, Biggs said he chose Sine Kerr at least in part because she is a dairy farmer. That is a sharp contrast from the gubernatorial hopeful who was trained as a lawyer but has spent much of his career in politics.

"She knows Arizona's agricultural community as well as anyone and has the respect of farmers, ranchers, and policy makers from around the state,'' Biggs said in a prepared statement. He specifically cited her work in securing $1 billion in 2022 for the state's Water Infrastructure Finance Authority to find new sources of water, something that has included efforts at desalination.

Kerr, a Buckeye Republican, also pushed through legislation that same year that allows crime victims to petition courts for what amounts to a lifetime restraining order preventing their assailants from ever harassing them again.

But Kerr also is known for her sponsorship of what she called the "Arizona Women's Bill of Rights'' which sought not only to define sex but also spell out that it is determined at birth. Her legislation also said that the only options are male and female, that it is "objective and fixed,'' and "does not include gender identity or any other term that is intended to convey a person's subjective sense of self.''

Kerr, in introducing the plan, cited cases — all from other states — where transgender individuals or males who identify as females have decided to participate in women's sports and injured players who were born female.

The measure was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs who is Biggs' opponent in this year's general election.

"As I have said time and again, I will not sign legislation that attacks Arizonans,'' the governor wrote.

Kerr also sponsored a proposal in 2021 that would have made it a crime for a physician to perform an abortion after it was determined that a fetus had a detectable heartbeat -- something that could occur as early as six weeks, even before a woman knows she is pregnant.

Her proposal, tacked on to an unrelated bill approved by the House about license plates, did contain an exception if the mother's life is in danger. But there were no exceptions for rape or incest.

The measure eventually died.

Kerr also has found herself at odds with Attorney General Kris Mayes and her attempts to protect rural groundwater.

Kerr sponsored a proposal in 2023 that would have stripped the attorney general of the right to bring any sort of nuisance action at all against agriculture.

That bill was in anticipation of what Mayes ended up doing the following year when she filed suit to stop a Saudi company from "excessively pumping groundwater'' at its western Arizona alfalfa operations and require it to set aside funds to compensate neighbors it has damaged. Mayes said that Fondomonte LLC has created a "public nuisance'' by pumping so much water it has dried up nearby wells and already resulted in subsidence of the land around Vicksburg in La Paz County.

Mayes was able to bring that lawsuit because Kerr's bill was vetoed by Hobbs. The governor said lawmakers need to address water issues "in a holistic manner'' rather than tinkering with water laws on a piece-meal basis.

Kerr, in her own prepared statement Friday, made it clear that she intends to take aim at the incumbent governor.

"Arizona's rural communities have come under attack from Democrat Katie Hobbs and her allies, prioritizing the demand of ideologues over protecting our state's agriculture community,'' she said. And she also promised that rural Arizona "will always have a seat at the table in a Biggs-Kerr administration.''

Kerr was elected to three two-year terms in the state Senate after being appointed in 2018 to fill the seat being vacated by Steve Montenegro when he quit to run for Congress but did not seek reelection in 2024. She was subsequently tapped by the Trump administration to serve as the state executive director of the Farm Service Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a position she resigned from earlier this week.

Her background in agriculture goes back to 1980 when she and her husband, Bill, started a dairy farm.

They eventually sold the dairy and have since been operating a cow-calf operation, selling beef directly to the public. The family also grows several crops including alfalfa, silage corn and oats.

This is the first time in state history that there will be a lieutenant governor.

Voters created the position in 2022 after multiple instances where a governor died or left office and ended up being replaced by the secretary of state — someone elected on his or her own and who often was not of the same political party. Supporters of the change said having a lieutenant governor selected by the governor — and elected on the same ticket — will ensure continuity of policies.

Hobbs has yet to select her running mate.