Governorship
Governor Alexander Oswald Brodie appointed Kibbey Attorney General for Arizona Territory on November 19, 1904. He did not hold the position long, as two months later Brodie announced his resignation. Territorial Secretary William F. Nichols was initially considered as a replacement, but Nichols instead recommended Kibbey be appointed governor. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Kibbey governor of Arizona Territory on February 27, 1905, and he took the oath of office on March 7.
When Kibbey entered office, the biggest issue facing Arizona Territory was a proposal to recombine Arizona with New Mexico Territory and admit the combined political unit as a single state. Despite President Roosevelt's support of the proposal, Kibbey swiftly proclaimed his opposition, noting the widespread disapproval of the plan by the citizens of Arizona. The newly sworn-in governor also threatened to resign over the joint-statehood proposal. As the 23rd Arizona Territorial Legislature was in session when he came into office, Kibbey asked the legislature to authorize a special election asking the territory's voters to weigh in on the proposal, but no such election was authorized. When Representative Edward L. Hamilton of Michigan introduced a bill to enact the proposal, the governor then joined with other territorial leaders in lobbying against the joint-statehood bill in the U.S. Congress. The lobbying gained a number of supporters who were able to delay passage of the bill and then insert an amendment calling for a referendum by the voters of both Arizona and New Mexico asking, "Shall Arizona and New Mexico be united to form one State?". The proposal died in November 1906 when New Mexico voters approved the proposal by a vote of 26,195 to 14,735 but Arizona voters rejected it by a vote of 3,141 to 16,265.
While Kibbey was generally a supporter of the mining industry, he felt the territory's mines were not paying their fair share in taxes. Proclaiming "To pay proper taxes is a duty", the governor sought to remedy this situation. His first effort was an attempt to have the assessed value of the mines increased for property taxes. He was unsuccessful in this effort until August 1905, when he asked for the resignation of A. F. Donau from the territorial board of equalization. The day after Donau resigned, a previously unsuccessful proposal to raise the assessed values of the territory's mines from US$4 million to US$14 million was passed. Then during his address to the 24th Arizona Territorial Legislature, Kibbey renewed his call for higher taxes. In the address he noted that while the mines had assessed values of between 3 and 5% of their real values, all other taxed property, with the exception of the railroads, were assessed at 40 to 70% of their real value. During the legislative session, mining interests used their influence to have a bill passed that set the assessed property value for a mine at 25% of the value of the bullion produced by the mine. The mining interests expected that Kibbey would find this assessment value too low and veto the bill. Kibbey instead signed the bill into law, noting it increased tax revenues to the territory and was an improvement over the previous situation.
In other matters covered in his address to the 24th legislature, Kibbey called for restrictions on the sale of tobacco and liquor, a prohibition on gambling, limitation of hours of operation for saloons, and a ban on women and girls' working in saloons. These proposals were made primarily as a means of raising the territory's perceived moral situation as part of efforts to gain statehood. During his address to the 25th Arizona Territorial Legislature, Kibbey expressed confidence that Arizona would soon be granted statehood and left further increases in mine taxation to the state legislature. He instead urged creation of a railroad commission in an effort to build a more efficient transportation system.
The 25th legislature proved to be highly partisan, with the Democratic-controlled session opposing many of their Republican governor's efforts. The session overrode vetoes to bills eliminating the position of Territorial Examiner and creating a literacy test for all Arizona voters. Another veto override abolished the Arizona Rangers. In their place, each county sheriff was authorized a limited number of "ranger deputies". The final key veto override involved a bill authorizing territorial schools to segregate "African" students.
President Roosevelt renominated Kibbey for a second term on December 16, 1908. Mining interests and other political opponents delayed confirmation until after Roosevelt left office. When President William Howard Taft took office, he decided to appoint Richard Elihu Sloan and as a result Kibbey left office on May 1, 1909. On his last day in office, territorial employees presented the outgoing governor with a set of cut-glass drinkware, a 254-piece service of silverware, a cherry chest inscribed with his initials, and a gold watch as tokens of their appreciation.
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