Raúl Grijalva

In 2015, Grijalva settled a complaint accusing him of drunkenness and a "hostile workplace environment" with a female staffer who'd been at her job for three months. The payment of $48,000, was made from House of Representative funds.[11]

• Committee on Education and the Workforce
  • Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services
  • Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education
  • Subcommittee on Workforce Protections
• Committee on Natural Resources - Chair since January 2019
  • Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
  • Subcommittee on Water and Power

Grijalva is a member of several dozen caucuses. A full list is available at his website.[12]

• Congressional Progressive Caucus
• Congressional Hispanic Caucus [13]
• LGBT Equality Caucus (Vice Chair)
• Congressional Arts Caucus[14]
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus[15]
• Medicare for All Caucus
• Blue Collar Caucus

Grijalva has a pro-choice voting record and voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.[30] He was strongly critical of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which sought to place limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in the Affordable Health Care for America Act.[31]

As co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Grijalva took a leading role in shaping CPC "alternative budgets"—budget bills offered by various groups and caucuses in Congress other than the official majority or minority party plan. In 2011 the CPC introduced what it called the People's Budget, which reached budget balance in 10 years according to an assessment by the Economic Policy Institute based on nonpartisan government data.[32] The proposal was noted approvingly by some of the world's leading economists, including Jeffrey Sachs—who called it "a bolt of hope ... humane, responsible, and most of all sensible"[33]—and Paul Krugman, who called it "genuinely courageous" for achieving budget balance "without dismantling the legacy of the New Deal.".[34][35]

In 2012, again with Grijalva as co-chair, the Progressive Caucus introduced the Budget for All, which is similar to the People's Budget and includes several new features, including a novel proposal to institute a small personal wealth tax above $10 million in net worth phased in over a period of five years.[36] The proposal received 78 votes, all from Democrats, when the House considered it on March 29, 2012.[37][38]

On Feb 24, 2010, Grijalva wrote a letter signed by 18 other Representatives calling for an investigation of the BP Atlantis offshore drilling platform due to whistleblower allegations that it was operating without approved safety documents.[39] He has called for Atlantis to be shut down.[40] Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on April 20, 2010, Grijalva has written letters to the Minerals Management Service and the Department of the Interior questioning current offshore drilling regulations and calling for stronger oversight of the oil industry.[41]

Grijalva has gained prominence as an outspoken critic of what he calls lax federal oversight of the oil drilling industry, and in late 2010 launched an investigation of the White House's handling of the Horizon spill and its aftermath. That investigation revealed that scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere in the federal government had voiced concerns about drafts of an official government report on the cause and scope of the spill, but were overruled because the report was meant as a "communications document".[42]

In 2010, he introduced H.R. 5355 to eliminate the cap on oil company liability for the cost of environmental cleanups of spills.[43]

Grijalva has sponsored numerous education bills during his time in Congress, including the Success in the Middle Act[44] and the Graduation for All Act.[45] Grijalva has long ties to the educational community from his time on the board of the Tucson Unified School District and his current position on the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

As a member and chairman of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, Grijalva was widely regarded as a central figure behind the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan,[46] an ambitious County program for planned land-use and biodiversity conservation.[47] He consistently supported endangered species and wilderness conservation on the Board of Supervisors and has continued to do so in Congress, introducing a bill in 2009 to make permanent the National Landscape Conservation System within the Bureau of Land Management. In 2008, Grijalva released a report called The Bush Administration's Assaults on Our National Parks, Forests and Public Lands,[48] which accused the Bush administration of mismanaging public land and reducing barriers to commercial access.[49]

The Trump administration proposed changes to "the way it enforces the Endangered Species Act" in 2018. Among other things, the proposal would facilitate delisting endangered species and "streamline interagency consultations". Grijalva, a ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee at the time, referred to the proposal as "a favor to industry". He posited that the administration "doesn't seem to know any other way to handle the environment" than "as an obstacle to industry profits".[50]

In 2011, Grijalva (along with Democratic Representatives Barbara Lee, Mike Honda, and Lynn Woolsey) criticized Obama for failing to seek congressional authorization for military intervention in Libya,[51] and was one of the 70 Democrats to vote to defund the Libyan war.[52] In 2013, Grijalva opposed intervening in Syria.[53]

On April 25, 2018, 57 members of the House of Representatives, including Grijalva,[54] released a condemnation of Holocaust distortion in Poland and Ukraine.[55] They criticized Poland's new Holocaust law, which would criminalize accusing Poland of complicity in the Holocaust, and Ukraine's 2015 memory laws glorifying Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its leaders, such as Roman Shukhevych.[54]

In July 2019, Grijalva voted against a House resolution condemning the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel. The resolution passed 398–17.[56]

On February 24, 2015, as the ranking Democratic member of the United States House Committee on Natural Resources, Grijalva sent letters to seven institutions employing scientists who disagree with most other climate scientists on man-made climate change. The letters requested information on any funding from fossil fuel companies, as well as copies of all emails concerning the content of their congressional testimony. One of the recipients, University of Colorado Professor Roger Pielke Jr., responded that he had already testified to Grijalva's committee that he has received no funding from fossil fuel interests, and characterized the letter as part of a politically motivated "'witch-hunt'".[57]

The heads of some mainstream scientific organizations criticized Grijalva's letters. Margaret Leinen, the president of the American Geophysical Union, posted in her AGU blog that in requiring information of only a few scientists, based only on their scientific views, Grivalja's action was contrary to academic freedom: "We view the singling out of any individual or group of scientists by any entity – governmental, corporate or other – based solely on their interpretations of scientific research as a threat to that freedom."[58] The executive director of the American Meteorological Society wrote in a letter to Grvalja that his action "sends a chilling message to all academic researchers," and "impinges on the free pursuit of ideas that is central to the concept of academic freedom."[59]

In response to criticism that requesting communications was counter to principles of academic freedom, Grijalva said he was willing to eliminate that part of the request.[60]

Grijalva supports increasing restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns and increasing enforcement of existing restrictions on gun purchase and possession.[61] He was one of the 67 co-sponsors of the 2007 Assault Weapons Ban, HR 1022.[62] Grijalva has an F rating from the NRA.[63]

As co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Grijalva was a prominent supporter of a public option throughout the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[64] The House-approved Affordable Health Care for America Act included a public option — however, the Senate version did not include a similar provision, and it was ultimately not a part of the final reform package. Grijalva has largely been supportive of the health care reform law since its passage and argued the Supreme Court should not overturn it during a segment with Republican Rep. Peter Roskam, who opposes the law, for the PBS NewsHour on March 28, 2012.[65]

Grijalva has a long history in community health activism as an early supporter of Tucson's El Rio Community Health Center.[66] He supports single-payer health care, but voted in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act because he felt it was a major improvement over the status quo.[67]

Grijalva supports the DREAM Act and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP) and has recently come to greater prominence because of his role in promoting immigration reform.[68][69] He has opposed the expansion of a border fence, citing cost effectiveness concerns and potential damage to sensitive wildlife habitats.[70] The CIR ASAP bill includes his Border Security and Responsibility Act of 2009, which prioritizes remote cameras and other border monitoring techniques with a relatively slight environmental impact. The Immigrant Justice Advocacy Campaign gave him a 100 percent score for the first session of the 111th Congress. In previous years he voted against H.R. 4437 and the Secure Fence Act, and opposed Arizona Proposition 200 in 2004.

Grijalva has criticized armed civilian groups that patrol the Mexican border, accusing them of being "racist" and has reportedly used demeaning language to describe them. In return, some supporters of the armed patrols have called him "MEChA boy" in retaliation.[6][71]

On July 26, 2019 Grijalva, whose district runs along the U.S.-Mexico border, called Trump's emergency declaration a "pathetic attempt to circumvent Congress."

Grijalva is a strong supporter of sovereignty and government-to-government relationships. In April 2010 he introduced the RESPECT Act, which mandates that federal agencies consult with Native tribes before taking a variety of major actions.[72] The bill would codify a Clinton-era executive order that has never had the force of law.

After the passage in April 2010 of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law, which he saw as opening the door to racial profiling and granting traditionally federal immigration enforcement powers to local authorities,[73] Grijalva suggested that civic, religious, labor, Latino, and other like-minded organizations refrain from using Arizona as a convention site until the law was repealed.[74] His opposition to SB 1070, as well as his suggestion of a boycott of Arizona, was widely viewed as the reason for multiple subsequent death threats against him and his staff, which led to several office closures in the spring of 2010.[75]

When Judge Susan Bolton of the Arizona District Court enjoined major parts of the law [76] in July 2010, Grijalva ended his call for economic sanctions. As he told the Arizona Daily Star, the largest paper in Tucson:

After this ruling, everybody has some responsibility to pause, and that includes me," said Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat. "The issue of economic sanctions is a moot point now and I will encourage national organizations I'm in contact with to come and lend a hand - not just economically, but to help us begin to educate people about how we need to fix this broken system.[77]

He subsequently said that his economic strategy was not as effective as he hoped in changing other state lawmakers' minds, and that he would focus on legal remedies in the future.[78] The issue became a focal point in the 2010 election, in which Grijalva ultimately defeated Republican challenger Ruth McClung by less than 10,000 votes.

Concerned about allegations of voting irregularities purportedly leading to disenfranchisement, in 2004 Grijalva joined Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and several other House Democrats in requesting that the United Nations observe and certify elections in the United States.[79] After the General Election, Grijalva was one of 31 Representatives who voted in the House not to count the 20 electoral votes from Ohio.[80] President George W. Bush won Ohio by 118,457 votes.[81] Without Ohio's electoral votes, the election would have been decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, with each state having one vote in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Grijalva objected to the 15 electoral votes from North Carolina in the 2016 Presidential Election which Donald Trump won by over 150,000 votes.[82] Because no senator joined his objection, the objection was dismissed.[83]

After the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, Grijalva called it a consequence of the violent rhetoric that had been used by Tea Party members. Grijalva singled out Sarah Palin's rhetoric as "contributing to this toxic climate" and stated that she needs to monitor her words and actions.[84]