updated: welcome to tea party america…

Huffington Post: October 21 – The office of Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has been locked down due to the presence of a suspicious package covered with swastikas …. an “envelope containing white powder” was mailed to Grijalva’s Tuscon office

Grijalva has served in the House since 2003. He was reelected in 2008 with 63% of the vote.

* Raul Grijalva’s father was a migrant worker from Mexico who entered the United States in 1945 through the Bracero Program and labored on southern Arizona ranches

* Grijalva was born in Tucson, Arizona, and graduated from Sunnyside Magnet High School in 1967. He is a 2004 inductee to the Sunnyside High School Alumni Hall of Fame. He attended the University of Arizona and earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology

* Grijalva co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is widely considered one of the most liberal members of Congress — in 2008, he was among 12 members rated by National Journal as tied for most liberal overall

* For the first session of the 111th Congress, Grijalva received a 100 percent score from Americans for Democratic Action, Peace Action, the League of Conservation Voters, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and several other notable groups

* Grijalva has been an outspoken advocate of mining law reform and other environmental causes during his time on the House Committee on Natural Resources, where he chairs the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands

* He has been a vocal opponent of the recently enacted Arizona law that mandates police checks of citizenship documentation

* Shortly after the measure was signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Grijalva called on legal, political, activist and business groups not to hold their conventions or conferences in the state, a position he says has been misconstrued as a call for a general boycott of the state economy

* Grijalva has a pro-choice voting record. 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

* Grijalva has sponsored numerous education bills during his time in Congress, most recently the Success in the Middle Act and the Graduation for All Act

* 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. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20

* 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, an ambitious and highly regarded County program for planned land-use and biodiversity conservation

* 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, which accused the Bush administration of mismanaging public land and reducing barriers to commercial access

* Grijalva supports increasing restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns and increasing enforcement of existing restrictions on gun purchase and possession

* 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

* Grijalva has a long history in community health activism as an early supporter of Tucson’s El Rio Community Health Center. 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

* 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

* 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

******** UPDATE: HE WON!!!!! ********

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