Two years ago, Progressive Congressman Raul Grijalva called for a boycott of his own people. In protest over what he perceived to b a bad law, the congressman dealt a deadly blow to Arizona’s tourism industry. Now, in a national publication he indicted “my state” as a “petri dish for every crazy Tea Party experiment in bad government.”
The law to which he objected, SB1070, made national headlines due to Grijalva’s campaign to prevent safe and secure borders.
In his screed, Grijalva writes that it can be “frustrating to be an Arizona Democrat – especially at the statewide level, we feel a bit like an endangered species” but “having a co-chair of the Progressive Caucus from Arizona is a powerful statement, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Grijalva cannot hide his lack of respect for his people writing: “Jeff Flake could give away the Grand Canyon to the Chinese and still count on 47 percent of the vote without picking up the phone – that’s just today’s Arizona political landscape.”
This past summer, Grijalva mocked critics of his boycott, “My opponents are running on the fact that ‘Oh my God, he said the ‘b’ word and he has caused all this dire consequences to come the state.” But he says that he warned his people beforehand, “we said there is going to be economic consequences and there should be.”
“Grijalva’s thinly veiled excuse to cover his own bad judgement and behavior is typical of his way of representing himself and not the people of District 3. Another example is Grijalva leading the escape down the steps of the Capitol building in order to avoid casting a vote one way or the other to indict Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the Fast & Furious scandal, said his Republican opponent Gabby Saucedo Mercer. “His disdain for the military and his support for Code Pink, the anti-war group with ties to Communist regimes, is another example of Grijalva’s lack of respect for his constituents, Arizona and the United States in general. Grijalva is good for Washington bad for Arizona.” She concluded that “he seems to have nothing but contempt for his very own people. Our people deserve better.”