Adelita Grijalva will Work for the Community’s Vision of Arizona CD Seven

After an impressive primary victory on July 15, former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva graciously interviewed with Blog for Arizona to discuss working for the community’s vision if elected in the September special election to assume her late father’s House seat in Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District (CD) House Seat. 

The questions and her responses are below. 

What message would you like to send to the people in CD 7, Including to those of your worthy opponents after your primary victory?

“I want to say thank you very much to the voters for your faith in this campaign and the message that we talked about policy and talked about the impacts of this Administration on every local community. I want to thank our volunteers. We had over 1400 volunteers. We knocked on 39,000 doors and made 320,000 phone calls. Our volunteers were amazing, and I want to thank them. Our opponents in this race really pushed us to fight for every single vote, take every opportunity we had to talk to individual voters about what is at stake in this election and I’m really glad that our messaging that was all about policy, not about personality, resonated with the voters. I’m very appreciative of that.”

Moving forward, please advise what are three issues that you would work on if you elected to serve in the House following the September special election. 

“One of the things I think is really important is that our Democracy is threatened every day that Trump is an office and what he does to bypass Congress and Senate; bypass all of the branches of government. He just sort of walks around them as if they don’t exist. One of the things we have to do is fight back against that and the cuts that are coming, especially those that were just recently authorized by the Supreme Court for the Department of Education. Those are going to have devastating impacts to this community. So, what I want to do is between now and the general election is make sure we communicate out what is going to happen as a result of the full implementation of that big, beautiful bill, which is not beautiful, and it’s horrible for every community member. We will also continue to work on our relationship with all of our border towns, the three ports of entry making sure that those have the resources that they need in order to be fully staffed so we can continue to have flow across the Mexico border, but really talking about the issues that are important in this community, which is comprehensive immigration reform, protecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, affordability, and protecting our environment, that every drop of water counts, and in this district, tribal sovereignty is really critically important, especially with this Administration, so making sure that we’re supporting everywhere we can those conversations, which our nation to nation conversation.”

How will you promote an affordability agenda?

“Well, I think one of the things that’s going to be really critical is this bill cuts a lot of resources to CD Seven It cuts a lot of medical services, mental health services, SNAP benefits. I mean food to our people in poverty and so trying to work to open up those purse strings to make sure those funds come through. As a county supervisor and as a school board member, I worked really hard to try to create partnerships with our non-profit, city, county, and state, and so absent the federal government doing its job, what can we do locally to provide the services that we know are going to be needed for our community members. I’m really grateful that I have that experience to be able to try to build those partnerships that are going to be incredibly necessary as we move forward.”

What are one or two ways your vision for the people in CD Seven is better than your general election opponent. 

“Well, it’s not my vision. It is a vision that is a collective vision with this community in consultation and talking with what is it that you want me to work on, and so one of the first things that I’m going to do is create a strategic plan and bring together a committee that’s going to help advise our office, because it is the office of CD Seven.”

“The policies specifically? The number in volume and differences between myself and my Republican opponent are incredibly obvious. I listened to a little bit of the Republican CD Seven debate and every single one of those candidates was incredibly complementary of Trump and his Administration. So I can literally pick any of those policies, specifically the immigration policy and the support of ICE. When we look at what ICE has done in CD Seven in our communities to scare, threaten, intimidate, and split apart families, that’s what they were doing with their current budget. What is that going to look like when they have a budget that is 20 times what their budget was this year? That is scary and so making sure that I and our office is available to reinforce that there is a due process and just because Trump says it doesn’t exist, doesn’t make it so, and so making sure that this Administration is following the law is going to be another way that we’re going to be working very closely, especially with our amazing Attorney General Kris Mayes in fighting back for Arizona.”

Please advise at least two ways you and your team will take your message out to the community and encourage positive turnout in the special election, especially for younger voters like the Gen Z’s and the Millennials.

“Well, this campaign was very multi-generational, but on a daily basis had more young people than older people, and I think that the reason that happened is because we are welcoming to input, advice, and suggestions from everyone that walks through the door. What we’re going to continue to do is what we were very successful at doing in the primary election is going door to door, phone banking, but also having opportunities to talk online. I think that’s going to be another tool that we’re going to use. We did a little bit of that during COVID with Platicas, which are sort of like chit chats with me, and I think we’re going to do more of those more online, more live, kind of interactions, and trying to make sure that we’re talking specifically about how policies are going to impact day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, sometimes people think, well, I’m not into politics. Well, whether you’re into them or not, they impact you and so trying to communicate that out and really getting people more engaged in voting because we want that. That’s a muscle memory. I have voted in every election, primary, and general since I turned 18. It is just something that I do, and so what we want to do is encourage more and more people to utilize that right. They really have a responsibility to vote because so many in our community can’t.”

is there anything that covered in the first four questions you would like the readers to know about your candidacy for the CD Seven Congressional seat?

“I think that In this primary election, there was much talk about establishment versus younger versus different, and what I want to say is Grijalva’s are established in this community. We are part of this community and so if we’re saying that I’m established, I’m okay with that, because that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing the work. There’s this connotation of what that means and I think in our community when there was a lot of national attention and will be of national attention on this race. What I think the takeaway is that all politics are local, and so it is the door-to-door, the meet and greet are going out to every community in CD 7 that made a difference and helped this campaign be successful in the primary, and it’s something we’re going to continue to do through the general and work that will continue to happen when I am fortunate enough and privileged enough to represent CD Seven in Congress.”

Please click here to find out more about Adelita Grijalva and her campaign for the Arizona CD Seven House seat.