Governor Katie Hobbs’ nominee to head up the Arizona Department of Housing, Joan Serviss, has been found to be “unqualified” to lead the agency by the majority of members on the Senate Committee on Director Nominations.
The Committee, in a 3-2 party-line vote, recommended rejecting the confirmation of Serviss to the entire Senate body.
Senate Republicans say they uncovered “troubling information,” related to alleged “repeated and seemingly pervasive plagiarism” by Serviss while she served as Executive Director with the Arizona Housing Coalition.
According to Senate Republicans, “Over a period of about four and a half years, an alarming number of individual statements were documented as written by other groups but presented by Ms. Serviss as her own original works. Under her leadership, both government entities and the public were misled, threatening the credibility of this organization. Given this concern, a majority of members on the Committee found it extremely difficult to fully grasp Ms. Serviss’ true experience and qualifications. With the Director of the Arizona Department of Housing responsible for overseeing hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to address homelessness and affordable housing issues, it became apparent that Ms. Serviss would be unfit to serve in this position.”
“It’s frustrating that the Hobbs Administration once again did not conduct proper vetting of a nominee tasked with leading a critical agency, like the Arizona Department of Housing,” said Sen. Jake Hoffman, chairman of the Committee on Director Nominations.
“We’ve carried out our due diligence and have so far identified several unqualified, partisan individuals placed by Hobbs in these positions of power that directly impact the lives and livelihoods of our citizens. As I stated during this hearing, we cannot have a Manchurian candidate who will blindly follow the direction of special interest groups. We need independent thinkers who are seeking to serve only the best interests of our state and our taxpayers. In the absence of Hobbs conducting her own thorough vetting, the Committee on Director Nominations will continue to ask the tough questions of these individuals because it is what our citizens expect of us, and our state can only afford to advance highly qualified directors to lead our agencies.”
The whole Senate will vote on the Serviss recommendation early next year.
Senate President Warren Petersen formed the Committee on Director Nominations after Hobbs failed to follow protocol in the nomination process. He said at the time, that he hoped it would establish a clear system of checks and balances over state agency directors.
The committee is tasked with gathering information on and evaluating the qualifications of the Governor’s executive appointments in order to recommend a course of action for the Senate to take on each individual.
Arizona Revised Statute 38-211 requires the Senate to confirm the Governor’s appointments. This statute also requires the Governor to “promptly” send documentation outlining those nominations to the Senate.
Hobbs began appointing agency leaders prior to her official inauguration but failed to submit the documentation to the Senate on 23 out of 25 individuals had been appointed at the time.
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