Arizona Veterans’ Services leader won't be nominated for Senate confirmation

(The Center Square) — Arizona Department of Veterans Services’ Executive Deputy Director Dana Allmond will not be submitted to the state Senate Committee on Director Nominations as part of a legal agreement with the Arizona State Senate.

In an email obtained by The Center Square on Friday, Allmond wrote to agency employees that she will remain as a deputy director but that John Scott will instead go up for a formal nomination.

“Governor Hobbs and her team have negotiated a resolution on how to move forward with agency director nominations. As part of an agreement with current State Senate leadership, my name will not be sent for confirmation this time,” Allmond wrote.

“We will not allow politics to distract us from our mission,” she added.

Scott hinted at the nomination earlier on Friday in a post to LinkedIn.

“It is with humility and gratefulness that I announce my new role as Director for the Arizona Department of Veterans' Services,” Scott stated, as he’s been with the agency for a decade. “I am honored that Governor Hobbs has entrusted me to lead this amazing team of motivated individuals.”

The Republican-majority Senate committee is led by Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, a vocal critical of the Hobbs administration. The committee approval comes before a full Senate vote for a director nomination.

After the committee rejected numerous picks from the Democratic governor, the administration created the role of “Executive Deputy Director” as a workaround to the committee they dubbed as hyper-partisan. A subsequent lawsuit led to a Superior Court decision that Hobbs has to give names to the committee and can no longer have the “Executive Deputy Directors” at the helm without a proper confirmation process.

“The Court declares that, because the agency director positions at issue in this litigation became vacant outside of a legislative session, [state law] mandates that the Governor both nominate directors to those positions and transmit those nominations by the first week of the next regular legislative session," the Superior Court in Maricopa County court documents stated.