Where are your elected officials? Not at the office
Based on public records, statewide elected officials are never really at the office
During the primary election campaign cycle, the state treasurer’s race made headlines for one particular reason: Kimberly Yee was accused of not showing up to work.
State Rep. Jeff Weninger mentioned during a televised debate that his incumbent opponent (who trounced him on August 2) showed up to the office just six times over a six-month period. His evidence? A public records request for Yee’s badge swipes into the Treasurer Office’s building.1
Following this news I opted to request the same file because it seemed like details were missing – it was an election campaign after all.
So I requested the badge swipe records for Gov. Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Yee, Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, and the five Corporation Commissioners: Lea Marquez Peterson, Justin Olson, Sandra Kennedy, Anna Tovar and Jim O’Connor between Jan. 1, 2019 (when most of their current four-year terms began) through July 31, 2022. The request was through the Department of Administration, because they are in charge of these state buildings, but Ducey’s records did not have results and neither did Brnovich’s – for different reasons.
ADOA only keeps records for six months so the earliest data I received was from December 2021, but this post will focus on January through July of this year.
Brnovich works in a building not owned/leased by ADOA, whereas Ducey appears to not swipe himself in while he’s on the Ninth Floor. I asked his office for further explanation and was met with a short reply, “We do not comment on the Governor's security.”
I know Ducey shows up to work at his office, I just don’t know how often. I made an assumption that his Department of Public Safety officers or maybe a staffer scans him in, but that’s all it is – an assumption.
Here’s what I found and learned from the eight officials whose records I did receive:
Kathy Hoffman shows up the most often at 63 days over a seven-month span, but to her credit, she was on maternity leave in January and out for a bit with Covid in June.
A department of education spokesman told me the agency still allows for remote work, which Hoffman does partake in, and that badge access is required to access the building.
Hobbs showed up to work the second most often at 26 days. Likewise, a Seventh Floor spokeswoman said building access requires a badge to enter 24/7 and that the office is still utilizing remote work.
There’s a pretty steep drop off from there.
Yee showed up on 12 days over seven months and when she was accused of this during her debate in June, she predictably got defensive.
According to an Arizona Republic story at the time, Yee said the records don’t show every time she’s been in the office, and that she often accesses the building without using the badge.
She also claimed releasing the records was a “security threat” and she allegedly alerted the Department of Homeland Security. (I’m looking into if that was accurate considering these are public records.)
The Corporation Commission, unlike the other offices, does not require a badge to access the building and the five commissioners showed up on average eight times over seven months.
Marquez Peterson at 13 days, Kennedy at 12, O’Connor at six, and Olson and Tovar both showed up five days during that span.
Olson, Yee and Hobbs are the only three statewide officials (not including Brnovich) who faced a primary challenge in addition to their elected positions, but it’s not clear if their campaigning affected how often they appeared at the office.
Some more thoughts:
Remote work through the pandemic proved it should not required to be in an office in order to successfully do your job. If elected officials in charge of dozens or even hundreds of staff can not show up to the office and still do just fine it should be an option for everybody
This isn’t really new with elected officials not showing up to the building. Phoenix New Times reported in 2019 that Sal DiCiccio only showed up to work 29 days in all of 2018 which was fewer than council members who didn’t even serve for the full year. Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm also wrote a similar story for the Republic about disgraced former Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen, who was amid a trial within the county to keep his job or be removed. He apparently only showed up 53 days in all of 2019.
Both of those examples were pre-pandemic, but as I look into other elected offices we’ll see if Covid only exasperated what was already going on.
If it’s not required for elected officials to show up in-person, are government buildings even needed anymore?
See for yourself how often your elected officials are at their state buildings getting work done on behalf of taxpayers, and email me at dillon@fourthestate48.com (or reply to this email) if you notice anything interesting.
For some reason my records were more redacted than Weninger’s which made me raise an eyebrow about why that could be.