Pima County Health Department
Theresa Cullen
Pima County Health Commissioner Teresa Cullen was rejected Tuesday in her bid to become the Health Commissioner.
The voice vote followed last week’s torrid three-hour confirmation hearing, in which Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who chaired that committee, said she had taken over as Pima’s health chief during its heyday. criticized both the behavior and her repeatedly. COVID-19 outbreak. The committee voted her 3 to 2, in line with party policy, and Karen was not approved.
Senate Minority Leader Raquel Terran (D-Phoenix) also announced that Governor Katie Hobbs removed Karen’s name from considerationBut Senate Speaker Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said the senator didn’t get the message.
Karen’s final day as county health chief was scheduled for Friday.
But a county spokesman said Tuesday that she could probably stay in her previous position if her circumstances change. He said he was carrying out county duties.
Hobbes’ press assistant Murphy Hebert denied that the confirmation hearing went wrong because Cullen was not properly prepared.
“We were ready for a legal hearing,” she said. “And this was an ambush.”
At a public hearing last week, Karen was bombarded with questions about policies in place in Pima County since becoming Pima County Health Commissioner in June 2020.
Will Humble is a former Director of Health Services and is currently Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association. He said on her The Show on KJZZ that rejecting Karen’s job would be a “huge opportunity loss” for the state.
“She has the perfect personality to solve the kinds of problems that exist in state health departments: when it comes to operations, procurement, accounting, vaccine programs, and inspections of nursing homes and other regulated facilities,” Humble said. “So if you just think about her attention to detail and how deep she thinks about things, I don’t know who can do better than her.”
Humble added that Karen insists on accountability. “This is how we make organizations like state health departments effective by building accountability into staff decision-making and operations,” he said. “And that’s what she would have done.”
But Arizona Agenda co-founder Hank Stevenson said the nomination was doomed from the start.
“Karen was one of Arizona’s most notable scientists during the pandemic, and Republican lawmakers basically disagreed with her on just about everything,” Stevenson told the show. “[Hobbs] We named one of Arizona’s most liberal counties for surviving the pandemic very carefully. ”
Stevenson said that even without the new Senate committee created to scrutinize executive candidates, Cullen would have faced a difficult road to approval. I don’t know if I survived the commission,” he said.
