Arizona
District 7
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D)
Arizona 7th District
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D)
Southern Arizona, though technically part of Mexico for hundreds of years, was never a home to Latin American civilization as northern New Mexico was. Here the hot desert land was inhabited mainly by Native American tribes such as the Apache and Cocopah. They kept their culture and language alive in the region until they were uprooted by English-speaking whites who came in on cavalry horses and in miners’ wagons and railroad cars in the late 19th century. In 1854, the Gadsden Purchase—$10 million to Mexico for 30,000 square miles of desert—cleared the way for a southern transcontinental railroad. Today’s Hispanic Arizonans are mostly descendants of later immigrants from Mexico, some of whom came over the border in the sleepier days before World War II, when la frontera was scarcely patrolled. Many more have come since the 1980s to partake in the dazzling economic growth in the region over a quarter-century. That immigration pattern has slowed considerably in recent years, with the collapse of the real estate market in Arizona and stronger law enforcement against illegal aliens.
2008 Presidential Vote |
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| Obama | 123,202 | (57%) |
| McCain | 89,725 | (42%) |
| Cook Partisan Voting Index D+ 6 | ||
The 7th Congressional District of Arizona was newly created in 2002 and is the state’s second Hispanic-majority district, with a population in 2000 that was 51% Hispanic. It is geographically a giant of a district—larger than Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Connecticut, and New Jersey put together—and shares 300 miles of border with Mexico. The district is a collection of four distant communities connected by many square miles of uninhabited Sonoran desert. One is the suburb of Tolleson just west of downtown Phoenix. The second is the heavily Latino west and south sides of Tucson. The largest employer in southern Arizona is the University of Arizona in Tucson. The third community is Yuma, located at a Colorado River crossing in an irrigated agricultural valley, often the hottest place in the country. The lower Colorado produces much of the nation’s lettuce and in the winter is one of the nation’s biggest RV centers. The fourth is the Mexican border town of Nogales, which is 94% Hispanic and located near many maquiladora plants, long an entry point for the drug trade and the scene of many illegal border crossings in recent years. The twin smuggling tides—drugs and people—have inflicted damage on the fragile desert ecosystem. In an interesting example of international cooperation, the sister cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, have signed an agreement to respond jointly to fire and hazardous-materials emergencies.
Out in the desert there is the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation, and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, the largest aerial gunnery range after Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Range. It is twice the size of Delaware. However, 95% of it is not used for target practice in order to protect the habitat of the endangered Sonoran pronghorn antelope. Near Nogales, other unique forms of wildlife are found in the Tumacacori Highlands, including endangered species such as the jaguar, peregrine falcon, Chiricahua leopard frog, and Mexican spotted owl. With its brutal desert heat, the Baboquivari trail that runs north to the Tohono O’odham nation has been the deadliest immigrant crossing in the nation. Trash left behind by illegal crossers has caused growing environmental problems. The 7th District, home to seven Indian tribes, is one of two overwhelmingly Democratic districts in Arizona.
Arizona District 7
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D)
Elected: 2002, 4th term.
Born: Feb. 19, 1948, Tucson .
Home: Tucson.
Education: U. of AZ, B.A. 1985.
Religion: Catholic.
Family: Married (Ramona); 3 children.
Elected office: Tucson Unified Schl. Dist. Governing Bd., 1974-86; Pima Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 1988-2002.
Professional Career: Asst. dean of Hisp. Affairs, U. of AZ., 1987.
The congressman from the 7th District is Raul Grijalva, a Democrat first elected in 2002. He grew up in Tucson, the son of a bracero, or, guest worker, who emigrated from Mexico in 1945. He graduated from the University of Arizona and has lived in the city all of his life; he has deep roots in the immigrant community on the city’s southwest side. He was director of El Pueblo Neighborhood Center and assistant dean for Hispanic student affairs at the university. In 1974, he was elected to the Tucson school board and served 12 years. In 1988, he was elected a Pima County supervisor and served 14 years. As supervisor, he backed an effort to extend medical and dental benefits to same-sex domestic partners of county employees and focused on affordable health care, family and children services, and economic growth. Developers and builders helped elect him to office, but his support for planned growth and impact fees later alienated them.
| Election Results: | ||||
| 2008 General | ||||
| Raul Grijalva (D) | 124,304 | (63%) | ($720,896) | |
| Joseph Sweeney (R) | 64,425 | (33%) | ||
| Raymond Petrulsky (Lib) | 7,755 | (4%) | ||
| 2008 Primary | ||||
| Raul Grijalva (D) | Unopposed | |||
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Prior Winning Percentages: 2006 (61%), 2004 (62%), 2002 (59%) |
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When the district was created in 2002, the Democratic primary in effect determined who would get the seat. Grijalva entered with a home-court advantage: 64% of the primary votes were cast in Pima County. His chief opponent was state Sen. Elaine Richardson, who was endorsed by the women’s fundraising group EMILY’s List and spent more than $500,000 on ads. She criticized Grijalva for wasting taxpayer money on a $3.8 million contract to survey all the manholes in Pima County. Although outspent nearly 3-1, Grijalva had a well-organized grassroots effort and endorsements from labor unions, teachers’ unions, and the Sierra Club. Mocking his opponent’s national funding, Grijalva created “Adelita’s List,” invoking a name alluding to the independent women who fought in the Mexican Revolution. He opposed the partial privatization of Social Security and a proposed increase in the retirement age, and he supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. He won the primary with 41% to Richardson’s 21%. In Pima County, Grijalva got 54% of the vote. He won easily in November and his daughter, Adelita, won a seat on the school board.
In the House, Grijalva’s voting record is strongly liberal. On the Education and Labor Committee, he urged full funding of the Bush administration’s 2001 No Child Left Behind law, which tied federal funding to student performance on standardized tests. Grijalva and other liberals complained the program was too underfinanced to be effective; he derisively dubbed it the “No Child Left Untested” law. Much of his effort has been focused on immigration policy. He has co-sponsored bills to raise the number of low-skill visas from 5,000 to 400,000 and to allow legalization for some illegal immigrants, provided they pay a $500 civil fine. He has worked to expedite citizenship for members of the U.S. military and to do away with per-country limits on green cards.
Another strong area of interest for him is his work as chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, which is a part of the Natural Resources Committee. He has worked to stop uranium mining in the Kaibab National Forest and on federal lands near the Grand Canyon. He also has sought wilderness designation for the Tumacacori Highlands, to prevent mining claims in the Coronado National Forest, and, more generally, to prevent oil and gas drilling without environmental review on public lands where it is currently allowed. He and Tucson-area colleague Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords got the House to vote in favor of creation of a Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area in October 2007. He has opposed the 4,000-acre Rosemont copper mine on U.S. Forest Service land southeast of Tucson, and has sought to protect Tumamoc Hill from development by trading federal lands with the developer. He has worked to create a Sonoran Desert conservation system, which would protect 3.3 million acres and 56 miles of trails in Arizona.
In 2008, Grijalva was widely mentioned as a possible nominee for Interior secretary, and was supported by several national Hispanic organizations and by Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.V. But in December, Obama announced then-Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., as his choice. “The problem was, I didn’t have anybody on the inside promoting me on the transition team,” Grijalva told reporters. “We are a little more assertive about some of the issues than others. That possibly played a role.” The same month, he turned down an offer of a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, saying he preferred to stay on Natural Resources. “You come to Congress for the things that you care about—resources, education, and labor,” he said. “Ways and Means is prestigious and powerful. It ain’t my cup of tea.”
Grivalja is on the far left in the Democratic Caucus. In December 2007, he joined 22 other Democrats in the move to impeach Dick Cheney. In November 2008, he was elected co-chair with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., of the 75-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. He endorsed former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for president but switched to Obama shortly before Edwards’s withdrawal. But Hillary Rodham Clinton carried Arizona and the 7th District in the Super Tuesday primary. In the general election, Grijalva campaigned for Obama among Hispanic voters in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. He has been re-elected by wide margins.
