The Grijalva interview, Part 2: The Occupy Movement and the Take Back the Capitol Events

by David Safier

This is the second part of my interview with Rep. Raúl Grijalva in his D.C. office on Thursday, December 8 (Part 1 here). I smoothed out some phrases for continuity, occasionally added a word or phrase in brackets for clarity and removed a few tangential discussions. Otherwise, this is what Grijalva said on the subject.

The Grijalva interview, Part 2: The Occupy Movement and the Take Back the Capitol Events.

You know, it was really interesting, some of us were talking. I said, in DC, the occupation, like they did on Wall Street, should be on K Street, because that’s where the power and the influence is. That’s who writes the bills, that’s who puts the commas and the semicolons in that give somebody a break on a piece of legislation.  When it happened [the March on K Street Wednesday], I thought it was a fitting target here in DC. Part of the gridlock and stagnation here in Congress is a direct result of the influence that happens on K Street, both in campaign contributions and in writing some of this legislation, undoing regulatory checks and balances. It’s all coming from that lobbying arm.

I’ve said it over and over again, I think the greatest contribution that the Occupy movement has made across this nation is, it shined a light on the issue of fairness in this country. By doing so, it has moved the debate in a different direction. The debate has all been about tax breaks, deficits, cutting government, on and on and on. That’s been the dialogue in this country, and to a great extent, in the media.

Boom. The Occupy movement starts, organically, and suddenly the issue of fairness becomes important. The genius of saying “99 percent” – it crystallized everything, it’s not something you have to write a thesis to explain, people get it. By shining that light on fairness, now people are looking at the concentration of wealth and power in our society, how legislation is written or not written, where the greatest benefit is. "The greater good” has become an issue again. Democracy is being talked about. It also brought to light a very important question about the income disparity that’s current in this country. We’re building a permanent underclass in this nation, which is not good economically, and it’s certainly not good for the social fabric of this country a generation from now.

All of us who are in public life, whether we agree or disagree with the Occupation movement, owe them gratitude, because they’ve shifted the debate. When we would propose things around the budget, we being the Progressive Caucus and other caucuses, it was [viewed as] symbolic, pie in the sky, it could never happen. Suddenly the ideas have some credence. Suddenly people want to know more when our budget says we can balance this budget in ten years and create a small surplus, plus we invest more in our domestic side, and still cut the budget by two trillion.

I thought the greatest comment about our budget and our proposal was an off-handed endorsement on the part of Bill Clinton in his last book when he said, “It’s a very interesting concept.” [Laughs] I took that as a ringing endorsement.

I visited the folks back in Tucson, the Occupy people in Armory Park. I’ve been in civic, political life my whole life, since I was 17, a span of a good 40-plus years. So I kind of know the players and the characters that are part of the political current in Tucson.

I went to Armory Park, chatted with the people there, and I didn’t know 80% of them. It was a different group of people. The way Fox News and the hard right wants to categorize them, they’re just scruffy, aging hippies or new hippies, they don’t have a job anyways. No. These were teachers who had been laid off. These were construction workers – young. These were kids who couldn’t go to college or had to leave college. These were nurses. These were retired people who were worried about their security in their twilight time.

I was very impressed, and taken a little bit aback. I went with the preconception that I was going to run into a lot of people I know and I’ve worked with in the past. Easily 80% of them, it was the first time I’d met them. I went back and told everybody, people shouldn’t underestimate this. That was just the beginning.

If there’s a word to describe this movement, it’s [the way it highlighted] the issue of fairness. I think that has been a huge contribution.