Kari Lake Eyes New Way of Getting Katie Hobbs Removed From Office

As Arizona's new governor Katie Hobbs marks her first week in office, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is renewing her call for Hobbs to be ousted from office.

On Monday, Lake's campaign's Twitter account said that impeachment proceedings against Hobbs should begin as soon as the Democratic governor signs an order mandating the use of pronouns in state classrooms.

"This is blatantly unconstitutional," the campaign claimed.

"It's truly an exhausting feeling knowing that we were right. And that the people of Arizona know we were right," Lake added. "But that they were denied a free and fair election to stop this garbage from happening. Are we supposed to feel vindicated watching the state be destroyed like this?"

While Hobbs is not seeking to mandate the use of pronouns, there is a new Republican-led bill making its way through the Arizona Legislature that seeks to prohibit teachers from addressing students by their preferred gender pronouns without parental consent. As the governor, however, Hobbs has the power to veto such legislation.

Hobbs has now served as governor for a full week, but her opponent has continued refusing to concede and has maintained that she is the rightful winner of the election. Hobbs won by more than 17,000 votes.

Lake has even brought the issue to court, filing an election lawsuit claiming that fraud swayed the results of the midterms against her. Last month, Maricopa County judge ruled against her, concluding that "every single witness" in the two-day trial refuted Lake's claims of election misconduct.

Although she is appealing the case, experts previously told Newsweek, "It's over for Lake."

"Hobbs has already been sworn in as governor, and Lake's appeal will take weeks to resolve, if not months," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said.

On Monday, Hobbs gave her first State of the State address to state lawmakers, seemingly taking aim at Lake by saying that "chasing conspiracy theories, pushing agendas for special interests, attacking the rights of your fellow Arizonans or seeking to further undermine our democracy will lead nowhere. "

In her speech, Hobbs said that teachers are "caught in the middle of crises of our own making," which was driving Arizona teachers out in droves. The state has the highest rate of teacher turnover in the nation, according to the governor.

She announced the launch of an Educator Retention Task Force that would "improve class sizes, resources, working conditions and other factors" for Arizona teachers.

"To the teachers and education support professionals of our state, I see you, I respect you and I will stand up for you," Hobbs said.