Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) is very close to big business, and she likes regulation.
Now, she says she likes helping immigrants, women, and the working class, but these worthy causes all take second place to her true loves of big business and regulation.
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This year, Hobbs vetoed multiple bills to liberate small businesses, particularly the sort of small businesses that single mothers or immigrants would run.
In April, Hobbs vetoed a bill to legalize home-based businesses. Under this bill, local ordinances about safety, noise, litter, traffic, and parking would all apply, but someone making and selling furniture from his garage wouldn’t need a special license.
Regulations on home-based businesses only apply to small business, and so they protect big business from competition.
That’s why the restaurant lobby in Arizona lobbied Hobbs to veto the “Tamale Bill.” She did veto it, and the legislature failed to overturn it. The Tamale Bill would have made it legal for home cooks to sell their wares on a small scale. Currently, selling homemade pies is legal, but more perishable homemade foods, such as fresh tamales, are sold only on the black market.
Hobbs argued:
“The bill would significantly increase the risk of food-borne illness by expanding the ability of cottage food vendors to sell high-risk foods. It fails to establish sufficient minimum standards for inspection or certification of home-based food businesses.”
Fiona Harrigan at Reason writes about the fallout:
The veto, she argues, “will come down disproportionately hard on women — the Institute for Justice has noted that 83 percent of cottage food producers are women — and immigrants, many of whom sell homemade food to begin making money in their new communities. If passed, H.B. 2509 would have generated an estimated $55.3 million in new annual food sales, according to the Common Sense Institute.”
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“Enforcement is generally lax in Arizona. But keeping the restriction on the books — along with the harsh punishments of a $500 fine and six months in jail for violators — means that the state could invoke it to punish unlicensed home chefs. This already happens in other states: Carrollton, Texas, mailed Dennise Cruz a ‘warrant arrest notice’ and fined her $700 for selling tamales without a permit. In New York, police officers handcuffed a woman selling churros inside a Brooklyn subway station.”
A crackdown on homemade food and driving more people into black markets isn’t good for food safety or for the working class. But Hobbs has other priorities.
