Jonathan Nez is Running to Become the First Native American from Arizona to Serve in the House of Representatives

Opening Doors. 

Listening to and Serving the People.

Those are two of the reasons former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez is running to become the next House Representative from Arizona Congressional District (CD) Two. 

CD Two is comprised of all or parts of Apache, Gila, Coconino, Graham, Maricopa, Mohave, Pinal, Navajo, and Yavapai Counties. 

The current CD Two Representative, MAGA Republican Eli Crane has managed (despite the district’s considerable boundaries,) to find residence outside of it in Oro Valley in Pima County.

If chosen by the voters this November, President Nez, unlike Crane, will actually be a resident in the district he was elected to. 

He will also work in the people’s interests, striving to secure:

• Additional Bipartisan Infrastructure and CHIPS Act projects for the district. 
• Water Rights and Security. 
• The viability of Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.

If elected, he would also open doors and make history by becoming the first Native American from Arizona to win a seat in the House of Representatives. 

President Nez graciously took the time to respond to questions about his candidacy to become the next House Representative from Arizona Congressional District (CD) Two. 

The questions and his responses are below. 

• Please tell the voters at least three reasons they should vote for you over any Democrat or Republican opponent for the CD Two Arizona House seat. 

“I have over 18 years of political experience. After going to get my university degrees at Northern Arizona University, I went back to the Navajo Nation. Our elders and family challenge us to get an education and gain experience outside the Navajo Nation and bring back those experiences to help build our nation. It’s about nation-building. I’ve been in local, tribal, and county government. I’ve worked with Republicans in a bipartisan way to get things done for the constituents who elected me into office. Although in tribal politics, there’s no identifying as a Democrat or Republican to run for office but I knowingly picked a Republican to be my vice president. We were able to work together with the state government as well as the federal government during a Republican majority and a Democratic majority. We were able to deliver projects and resources to our constituents on the Navajo Nation.”

“Congressional District Two is over 58,000 square miles and over half the size of the State of Arizona. We are focused on helping all constituents in the district.  It does not depend on race, religion, or party. In Navajo, we are taught to respect all Five Fingered Beings. We’re going to fight hard for the folks in this district the same way we’ve fought hard for the Navajo people.”

How would you contrast yourself with the current incumbent (Eli Crane) and why they should pick you over him?

“Great question. Let me just start by saying I was born in the district. I grew up in the district. I went to college in the district. I served over 18 years in the district and I’m still here unlike my opponent. He doesn’t even live in the district. I’m sure the voters want someone who actually knows what’s important to the constituents of this district and Arizona. Little do people know. I was raised in a Republican home. My parents being Republican, gave me a very conservative upbringing and being in the church. Many of those values I still live by today, including attending church every week. The ideals of working together, diversity, helping those who cannot help themselves, and as a Native American moved me towards the Democrat party. But that doesn’t mean it’s just all one party. I think working in the middle and talking about what’s important to our voters is very critical in this position. We shouldn’t be swayed to the far right, like my opponent, or the far-left but to address the issues central to our constituents. I grew up in a place where there was no running water or electricity. Being able to live off the land, have a farm, and having a ranch molded me to be an effective public servant. That’s what I bring to the table for this District.”

• Please advise what are the three main issues at this time in this House race? Please explain.

We’ve established great teams during my time in office to work for the constituents, which is critical to get things done for the people. Number one is infrastructure. As I travel the district, rural folks speak about the need for elder care, childcare facilities, broadband, telecommunication, water, and many others. As president and vice president of the Navajo Nation, I am proud to say we brought in around five billion dollars to the Navajo people and the area.  Most of it came from the COVID-19 dollars. We fought hard to have tribal nations get their fair share.  The pandemic took a big toll on tribal communities, more so on the Navajo Nation. The focus of relief funds was to bring running water and electricity to our citizens. Thirty to forty percent of our Navajo people don’t have running water or electricity. Another priority was to expand broadband and telecommunication throughout the region.”

“While visiting communities in the district, we’ve been hearing similarities to what we heard in other communities throughout the state of Arizona and tribal communities.  Congressional District Two is one of the most rural districts in the country. With it being rural there is a feeling of neglect by elected leaders which turns to frustration.  Folks wonder where their hard-earned tax dollars are going, be it local taxes to federal income taxes. We just filed our income taxes recently. They say how come there are no dollars coming back to the district for repairing roads, getting water into communities, and many other needs. Our opponent (Representative Crane) has yet to bring congressionally directed dollars for projects in the district. Why? Because he doesn’t believe in it. Our communities in the district are in dire need. Don’t get me wrong. I recognize that heavily populated areas do need it but so do rural communities. We also need to bring jobs into the rural areas. We have an opportunity with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well as the CHIPS and Science Act. Some of those dollars should be coming into this district but our opponent has just been so far to the right following this MAGA ideology. He forgot about his constituents. We need to fight for what is fair to our district by bringing some of those dollars back to our communities.”

“Of course, we heard about the proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act and repealing low-cost insulin for seniors. As your congressman, I will fight to have no one take this away from us. We see folks in need of quality health care and resources in rural communities. We have heard my opponent say he supports repealing low-cost insulin for seniors. We would continue to highlight the need for affordable and quality healthcare.”

“Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, we have heard from communities the focus on the preservation of Arizona’s water supply, water security, and water rights. It also has to do with keeping foreign governments and their corporations from taking from Arizona water resources. We should be fighting for our share of water in Arizona. We need to get as much water from the Colorado River to Arizona as we can. Allowing tribes and rural communities to have a seat at the table will benefit negotiations and the more water we can bring from the Colorado River to Arizona means that we can save our precious groundwater for the future. There’s a lot of growth in areas like Prescott, Prescott Valley, Globe, and Florence. Those areas are growing, and those communities are asking how they are going to get more water for their future.”

You mentioned that Representative Crane is not approving any Infrastructure dollars. Does that mean CD Two is not seeing any monies from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act like in broadband or telehealth?

“There are projects because of this Administration that’s pushing some of these projects into rural Arizona, but I was talking about specifically our Congressional leader has yet to appropriate any dollars in a bill or even bring in Congressional appropriations for some of these projects. The Senators (Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly) have been doing that right for our district but specifically for my opponent, I haven’t seen any. Maybe there is. I like to see that but to my knowledge, everyone who’s spoken to me is saying hey, why aren’t we getting our fair share of resources from the incumbent.”

On Protecting Reproductive Freedom.

“As a tribal member, we always use terms like sovereignty, the ability to take care of yourself or to govern yourself. We know that as a concept and definition for self-sufficiency all over the world. But inherent sovereignty, we don’t really talk about as much. That’s the individual decision made for oneself. That’s what tribal people believe in. There’s a concept in Navajo called [T’áá hwó’ ají t’éego] that means the individual has the ability to take care of themselves and to do things for themselves. So, we don’t need judges. We don’t need elected leaders to tell people what to do in terms of their own personal health and well-being. For women, keep the judges and keep the elected leaders out of their personal lives or their own health. We’re going to continue to support them in making their own decision. Their decision is between them and their creator. What’s happening right now is really disheartening. Look at what is happening with the Republican obstruction in the Arizona legislature.”

On Supporting Law Enforcement. 

“Well, I have been in the Navajo Nation. We don’t have many law enforcement officers. But during my tenure, we have brought in a new police academy. Of course, the police academy gets a lot of their instructors who are well-grounded in ethics while also grounded in our tradition and our culture. I think there was probably an average of every Police Academy class, there were probably like thirty cadets, and out of that, ten graduated. That’s ten new officers on the streets of the Navajo Nation to protect and serve. I’m proud of that record. I’ve always said that we need Public Safety and of course, we also need to balance that with putting more resources into the judicial side and to help with the behavioral and mental health issues some of our brothers and sisters are going through because we need to have them heal so they don’t end up in the judicial system or in the public safety system.”

Do you support Comprehensive Immigration Reform with Border Security and the Pathway to Citizenship?

“That’s a great question. People ask me, Jonathan Nez, what do you think about immigration? I say as a Native American, do you really want me to talk about immigration? That said, I do see some issues that need to be addressed. We need to have a better process for folks who are trying to come into this country legally. I mean a lot of the folks way back in the day didn’t have a legal system. We need to focus on strengthening our security to prevent bad actors from crossing the border, like drug traffickers, potential terrorists, and human traffickers. If we are able to put a pathway to citizenship and better screen our visitors coming in, it’ll help keep this nation safe. Recently, what caught my attention is that the Mexican border patrol is now protecting and doing surveillance on their side of the border. So, there’s some collaboration and I haven’t seen that in a while. We also should look at how foreign policy can help prevent or address the issues that are causing people to migrate to the United States from other regions, like addressing issues around tyranny or economics.”

“It did look like we were going to have a comprehensive bipartisan immigration and border security bill but President Trump said, ‘Hey, let’s not pass that and wait until I’m President’ but that’s not right. We should have been able to get that passed so that we can get the resources needed to make our country and borders safer, but MAGA Republicans like Eli Crane want to keep politicizing the border instead of working together.”

• Please describe your campaign strategy to reach voters including Independents and disaffected Republicans throughout CD Two.

“These past several months we have been going out into the community and talking with the voters and asking them to share their frustrations and thoughts with me. I think politicians and leaders tend to speak about their own plans for the country. I think we need to zip our lips a little bit more as leaders and listen to the people’s frustration. There’s a lot of frustration but when you can get it out of your system, you’re able to move forward in healing, and also you raise the awareness to an elected official about what is important to them, and we’ve been doing that in the district by having meet and greets and listening to the folks here. I grew up in a Republican home with a Baptist Church family, very socially conservative so I understand that we need to talk with one another and not push our own beliefs onto others, or we lose our ability to work together. Everybody has their own decision for themselves and that’s why we should be promoting folks to make those decisions and take better care of themselves and their families. With my background and history of working with Republicans and Democrats, I hope the record shows that I have done just that from being a local community member, to local governance, to county, and all the way to the Navajo Nation government. Over time we had opportunities over eighteen years to build a bipartisan network. You get to know people from both sides of the aisle and you’re able to talk to them and have some doors open in Washington DC. As I was telling folks, I will hit the ground running and it’s not going to be on Inauguration Day January. It’s going to be the day after the election when we’re victorious because we have friends on both sides of the aisle in Washington DC and throughout the country that we can be able to advocate for resources for our citizens in Congressional District Two.”

• Is there anything not covered in the first three questions that you would like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for Congressional District Two?

“As I mentioned before, this district is over sixty percent of the state. There are 22 tribes in Arizona. 14 of those tribes are in this District. There’s a lot of excitement in the tribal communities. Even the Republican tribal members are excited about this race. Twenty-one percent of the voting-age population of the district is Native American. I am the only candidate who can defeat my extremist opponent and inspire future generations of leaders by making history as the first Native American to represent Arizona in Congress. As you know, our neighbors in New Mexico put Deb Haaland in as their congressman and now she’s the Secretary of Interior. God knows, getting into Congress what that could lead to for the State of Arizona. Doors are open.”

Please click on any of the below social media sites if you would like to find out more about former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and his candidacy to become the next Representative from Arizona Congressional District Two and the First Native American to represent Arizona in DC.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NezForAZ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nezforaz/

Donate: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/nez-web

Website: www.jonathannezforaz.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NezForAZ