Welcome to Your Vote 2022 AZPM's weekly look at the candidates and the issues.

I'm Liliana Soto.

Southern Arizona has two congressional districts.

The sixth.

We met those candidates last week and the seventh.

We'll introduce you to those candidates shortly.

The seventh Congressional District stretches across almost the entire Arizona Mexico border, beginning in Yuma, and including Bisbee and Douglas in southern Cochise County.

It also stretches into Maricopa County.

Like all of the other congressional districts, it is new this year.

But the core of it has been represented by Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva since 2003.

He's here with AZPM's Christopher Conover.

Thanks, Lili.

Congressman, if you're reelected, what's the first bill you file when you get back to Washington?

Well, it depends on a majority minority status.

To be quite honest with you.

But you know, there's some there are some pieces of legislation that that have been eternal, to say the least, and that would be the Grand Canyon Protection Act.

If the president has a moved on on something, some different designation to protect the Grand Canyon, that Colorado water source from uranium mining and mining in general.

A real threat to that.

And then the other one, because I think it's important for Arizona to protect that source.

The other issue is having to do with indigenous communities and having a codified consultation process, mediate for tribes across this country.

And then then I think depending on where we're at in majority, minority, you know, sometimes we're asked what is the good piece of legislation that you passed?

And we can talk about that.

I'm proud of some, some, some.

But also sometimes, particularly the four years with Trump, it was about keeping the worst from happening and actually stopping legislation and other items.

So it's it's a combination of work.

So it depends on what our status is like.

I think we'll find ourselves, if we're in the majority, reintroducing bills that we think are powerful and need to be heard.

Environmental justice for all to protect environmental justice communities.

And.

And the list goes on.

But.

For now.

I think that's that's going to say a lot because it's the mode that you're in, you're either in a governing mode or you're keeping some of the worst things from happening.

And we certainly saw that under Trump.

The seventh Congressional District is the big border district for Arizona.

You have Yuma.

And now with the redraw, you have border towns in Cochise County.

Apprehensions record high this year, according to Border Patrol.

What is it the federal government needs to do.

The federal government needs to do, and what Congress needs to do, which is the impediment to getting anything done, is, you know, I understand immigration and the border.

I don't understand it.

But this is a cannon fodder, whipping boy, political issue, red meat that the Republicans use consistently.

And what happens is that the interject, the political fear factor and then nobody wants to deal with it.

I think we have to- do we want common sense solutions on the border?

Do, you know, I've come from a comprehensive approach.

I still believe in it, but even incremental, pragmatic steps to dealing with and I do consider it a crisis on the border and and a growing crisis.

Who are the people that are being apprehended?

Who are the people that Ducey is putting on a bus and sending somewhere?

They're coming from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil.

You know, interestingly enough, all those governments have authoritarian, uh, systems.

They don't have democracies.

And as a consequence, Nicaragua being another example.

Salvador whose civil society is falling apart.

That's what's coming to the border and seeking refuge, seeking escape, whatever it is.

And there has to be some there are solutions.

You don't give up on the issue of security, but you do begin to resource the border the way it should be, resource to process, to deal with credible fear.

Assess that we're not doing that and we're not doing that because you're trying to build a system that was basically destroyed over the last the course of the last four years.

So it's about solution based.

And in that solution based, it's going to be a compromise.

I know that.

And it's going to be difficult choices that I have to confront and others that might not agree with me on it have to confront.

And the fear to do that is it's what's holding any real progress.

It seems that the if we make the situation worse, it gives the Republicans a political advantage.

And and Democrats some don't want to touch that issue.

It's too volatile for them politically.

And so at some point, there has to be some rational discussion about what it means economically, what it means in terms of security and what it means to the health and welfare of the borderlands in period.

And one thing we're missing is the the really going after organized crime on both sides of the border, the ones that send munitions and guns there and other things, and the ones that are bringing dope and people into this country that's organized.

We're good at that.

At our law enforcement agency.

That's a concentration point that I still believe we're missing.

You talk about weapons going south.

Recently, the Mexican government filed in federal court in Tucson against five gun shops, one in Yuma, three in Tucson that they say are allowing guns to be sold that go south of the border.

Is there anything that the federal government can do or a member of Congress can do to to stop that flow of guns going south?

Yes.

Particularly in a country that, that doesn't accept that.

That is very gun conscious and it's very hard for citizens to acquire firearms in Mexico.

So that illicit trade that's going on is it's very dangerous both for Mexico and for our side and for the United States.

And I think Congress has to do first, the administration has to really amped up Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco agents that they got destroyed because the NRA and Trump decided that they were going to undo that agency and they were very effective in reducing its capacity and its ability.

I think you build that up, and that's what I meant about organized.

These are not accidents.

These are calculated ways to get arms over there through a middleman and the people that sell it.

Although they could say, I bear no responsibility, this is a free market.

People came and bought a gun.

Well, there is a there is a role that they play in terms of reporting, identifying, you know, somebody coming in and buying 12 automatic weapons should be a hint that it's not something that is a normal purchase by a person that is qualified, doing it legally and doing it for protection or recreation or hunting.

That's fine.

This other aspect we have to deal with, and the NRA feels that that's an infringement on the Second Amendment.

It's not.

And and and has resisted any attempt to do that.

You mentioned mining in conjunction with water.

Your opponent is a big proponent of mining.

Expanding it for the economic reasons says they recycle 75% of their water.

I understand you disagree with that.

That's it.

Yeah, it's kind of a mining association, talking points.

You know, we have the best technology.

We remediate, any disturbance we create, the water we use is recycled.

We look at all the revenue we bring you and the jobs we bring you so that offsets any loss on this end.

That's not true.

One of them- twenty- w- mining is based on an 1875 law.

And all the power to the mining company and no power to to the public through the representatives.

So that needs to change.

And then what also needs to change, is that, for God's sakes, one- they don't pay one penny in royalty on everything they extract from from public lands.

That needs to stop as well.

There has to be a return so that we can deal with abandoned mines and pollution that has been caused by that.

And so it's it's a big lie in that sense that we keep repeating the thing over and over and over again.

It's it's a law.

This is not about stopping mining.

It's about bringing mining into this century.

And in this century, it means.

Options.

It means public input.

And it means accountable and measurable results.

And that's not possible now with the law that we have in place.

They have all the cards and the rest of us all we're left with, as you'll notice, all the controversies, whether it's resolution, whether it is whatever mine you talk about.

The controversy stems from the fact the public didn't know until the last minute.

And here we are.

Let's talk about the big Supreme Court decision this summer.

Dobbs rolling back Roe v Wade.

Does Congress need to do something or should they leave the abortion decisions to the states?

The way we're operating right now.

If.

I believe strongly and I think most Americans do that that a woman's decision.

On her reproductive status, even involving abortion is her decision.

But that is a fundamental human right.

And if we believe that.

And we should.

Because what we don't want from Dobbs is to create a whole sub- second class citizenship for the women of this nation.

And so, if we, I think we need to nationalize it.

Codify those protections, Roe v Wade into law, plus others, and make it the law of the land.

Because, not because you're usurping from the states.

What you're doing is that you are protecting a human right, just like we did with the Civil Rights Act, just like we did with women's right to vote and the amendment that had to be done there.

And so and just as we're when we turned the right of of Native Americans to vote after 1948, these were legislative fixes to bad Supreme Court decisions.

Dobbs is a bad Supreme Court decision.

The only body that can correct it is Congress.

All right.

Well, thanks for spending some time with us.

Not a problem.

It's been good.

Thank you.

When the Independent Redistricting Commission reorganized the state's political boundaries, they put all of the ports of entry for Arizona in the seventh District.

That means whomever is elected will represent the majority of Arizona's border communities and cross-border trade.

Republican Luis Pozzolo is challenging Grijalva.

He is new to Arizona politics and is here with Christopher Conover.

Chris.

Thanks.

So the obvious place to start with this is you're not a career politician.

Why run for Congress?

Well, I think it's a lot of problems.

We have a lot of problems, especially in the District seven.

I think my experience in business and my life experience is very important to play a, you know, key role into the district, to bring improvement to the district.

We have a lot of problems.

We have Border Patrol problem.

We have drugs, parole and unemployment issues.

Criminalities is, you know, the homeless issues.

There are too many problems, you know, coming from a county that, you know, went through the same process.

I decided to and I was lucky to have a place to come.

And that was America.

America gave me a second chance.

And I see this country going through the same process.

That's what caused me to get into politics.

If people don't know your background, you mentioned you emigrated to the US here in business.

Give us a little bit of your background.

Well, you know, back in South America, I was in federal banking for 12, 17 years.

Two of those years I worked in the capital Uruguay.

My father was a politician.

When I came to America, I started from scratch and I came here.

You have no you know, work, histor- history.

Banking didn't pay very well over here, so I started from scratch as a dishwasher, move up, worked up as a recruiter for Toyota.

And after that, I work for a railroad company.

You know, I started as an admin.

I finished me in safety and training director for that company for six years.

And I work for a biotechnology company.

I got certified by Microsoft and we did a lot of implementations in Canada, US and Latin America.

And after that, I got into, you know, the mine business and distribution.

And I started again from scratch in that company.

Six months after that, I was director of operation and general manager for the Georgia facility.

And then I came to Arizona and I was general manager here, and I decided to open my own business.

You know, I said, you know, I'm spending too long away from family.

My daughter was growing.

I have a daughter is 18 now and I want to spend more time.

So we opened our first business in Maricopa City.

Everybody, oh, no, you're not going to succeed there.

And we did very well there.

And I went to Fountain Hills was next to Scottsdale and we opened another business there was very successful, too.

So we have, you know, the perfect immigrant American dream story and life with my family.

But, you know, I think it's time to do the same for other people.

So if you're elected in November, sworn in in January, what's the first bill you're going to file?

When I get elected in November, I think the best thing we need to do is cut regulations.

Everybody talk about writing more bills and writing more bills and we get too many of those bills and the red tape.

I think we need to go to Washington and seek how we simplify everything.

I think it's too complicated.

It's too many bills.

My number one goal is to stop the spending.

I think, you know, the budget need to be you know, we have not a real budget for 20 years, we haven't been able to balance our budget.

And this become a monster where you have politicians in Washington that are spending crazy amount of money, money we don't have.

You know where you know, the deficit on the federal budget is a trillion dollars.

We're printing money like crazy.

We are asking other countries for money.

So my goal over there is being able to, you know, stop the spending and doing that we are going to bring the inflation back.

And after that work with local, state and, you know, and the counties to, you know, cut regulations so we can bring business back to America.

Well, to my district.

The seventh Congressional District been redrawn along with all of them.

Now, it includes all the ports of entry for Arizona and almost the entire border.

You've been critical of your opponent when it comes to the border.

What does Congress need to do about the border?

Well, I think any country has a right to have control of their own border.

Right now, this administration has no control of what is happening in the border, And we're not talking to people that come every day to work in farms or people that are decent people coming to work.

That has been happening for 250 years.

That relationship between the two communities we cannot ignore, even when we have a wall in the middle, these two communities interact every day.

And I learned that, you know, it's been there a lot of time gone going into these communities and going into Mexico and talking with the Mexican authorities and brokers.

But, you know, I think we need to stop, you know, the madness in the border that we we you know, we are not sustainable.

This system is not sustainable when you open the border to everybody I've spoken with, people in Tijuana yesterday, they are hen- ten hen-, you know, 10000 to 20000 Venezuelans over there waiting because it's this administration.

Told them, oh yeah, come over.

The fentanyl became one of the biggest issues of the border, and the cartels are operating, you know, more and more into our district.

You know, I get a lot of information from cameras, that people have on the border.

And you see, we never see this before where, you know, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, the border, you know, the cartels are coming through our border.

They are fighting miles inside our border.

That no problems, you know, with AK 47's and, you know, 19/11's in their belts and never happened before.

You know, we need to stop the anarchy and have a system that is sustainable.

I'm an immigrant.

I believe in immigration, but we need to have a process and be, and we need to have order on how we do that.

When it comes to the initial stopping people coming across the border.

Every president I've covered since I've been in Arizona, which started with George W Bush, has always said more Border Patrol agents.

But that number has stayed pretty steady at 19,000 for years.

Is more boots on the ground, as people say, is that the answer?

And how do we get them?

Well, I think that, you know, according to the numbers, that I've seen a lot of people retire in the last two years, according with the Border Patrol sources I have.

They're talking about they lost around 15, 20% of the force.

Plus, you know, you took around 20, 30% of the people to do paperwork for asylees and you move the Border Patrol away from the border.

A lot of the Border Patrol, you know, Casa Grande, Tucson, I think we need to bring back Border Patrol to do border work at the border.

We need to give them more resources.

We need to maybe change the shifting, you know, maybe, you know, they have three shift days.

I think we need to probably to know, like firefighters, you know, they're going to spend three or four days.

We need to have, there are areas in our border here in Arizona, in national forests you don't have Border Patrol covering.

I have walked those cartel trails over there.

They are more than 120 cartel trails in the Arivaca area where you maybe see one or two trucks from Border Patrol driving around but you, not you don't see any boots on the ground at the border.

We know where the gaps are.

You know where these people are crossing.

If I know that, they know.

But, you know, basically, you know, I think it's a demoralization in Border Patrol, where they can basically.

Well, these are the laws and these are the rules, but you cannot enforce them.

So we you know, we're facing a problem where Border Patrol like police in Tucson well, the laws are there.

But if I enforce the laws, I get in trouble and that need to change.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Dobbs ruling, which got rid of Roe v Wade.

We now have 50 states trying to figure it out.

Does the federal government need to come in with one specific law?

And if they do, what should that law be?

I believe every state has the right to take their own decisions.

I don't think we can federalize.

You know, that's exactly what the Supreme Court said.

You know, the federal government had no right.

They didn't ban abortion.

They just say the federal government had no right to intercede into the abortion laws that the states should have.

I'm saying it's a state issue and every states have the right to take their own decisions.

I kept my personal opinion, but, you know, I'm running for Congress a federal position.

I don't think the federal government should be involved on that.

You mentioned mining earlier.

What needs to be done with mining?

It's big business here in Arizona, but a lot of folks, including your opponent, talk about the environmental impacts.

How do you balance those two?

Well, um.

The question you need to ask and I say this to Raul Grijalva in one of the debates.

You talk about environmental issues and the environmental issues are global.

Who can strike those min- we need the minerals we cannot have?

You know, even if you keep pushing with a new green deal, you need copper to build those electric cars where that copper is coming from.

Who can extract that copper.

You know, safer America with, you know, EPA and all the regulations that we have or Africa or Afghanistan or China?

And right now, we buy buying all those minerals, a lot of those minerals from those countries.

Well, you know, hundreds of thousands of people die in the mines and we don't even know.

I think we know.

We, at the same time, we need to create jobs in America.

We cannot become consumers.

And that's what we do.

And Raul for 20 years has been fighting mining.

You have mining projects here.

They've been here for ten years.

And they keep you know, they're lawsuits and, you know, new regulations trying to make these businesses go away but we need the copper.

We really need it.

You know, even you know, you get older and you say, well, I need a hip replacement, okay?

You're going to do a metal one.

You need titanium for that where it's coming from and come from mining.

Well, if you want a plastic one, it came from oil.

The new green deal, that Grijalva support and been supporting for 20 years is not sustainable.

It's not sustainable.

You know, we can see that when they push a new green deal and try to get that house out of fossil fuels.

And basically now we're paying the price and we're paying the price of people in our district making $25,000, $50,000 that people are paying the price.

And now they're realizing, well, we push too hard.

So we need to be sustainable.

This is not about pink unicorns.

This is about reality.

And you have people that are living in our district are suffering with inflation and the gas prices.

If the future are the electric cars.

I don't think that's a near future because the batteries need to be lighter, the battery need to be smaller, the charging time needs to be faster.

We are not there yet.

So you're not you're sacrificing a lot of people they are suffering right now with inflation and gas prices just because you want to push your agenda.

I'm not going to Washington to pull any agenda paid by any super PACs or any lobbies.

Raul claimed that his money doesn't come from PACs, while 40% of his money in 2021 and 2022 came from PACs.

So we need to start looking into that people ike, you know, this nonprofit organization, they're donating to him.

And I had done that.

You'll find, for example, Richard H. Lawrence Jr, who you know is a Californian, but he's a guru investor in Asia with $4.4 billion invested over there.

So what Raul is doing getting money from this guy?

I'm going to Washington to find solution, real solution for Americans and mining.

You know, we need those minerals.

We cannot live without that.

And if we can extract that here, we can create jobs over here, we can do it safer here.

Why not?

All right.

Well, thanks for spending some time with us.

Thank you.

To learn more about the candidates for the seventh Congressional District and all of the issues on the ballot, make sure to visit our website.

One of the major topics in the race for Arizona governor is how to handle the state's border with Mexico.

But how much power does the state have on an issue that's regulated at the federal level?

In this installment of our Fact Check Arizona segment, we look at how the proposed policies of the gubernatorial candidates contradict with federal law.

When Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs appeared on CBSs Face the Nation recently, the topic that took up the most time was how to handle immigration and security along Arizonas border with Mexico.

Hobbs largely centered on both parties failure to find a solution at the federal level.

Trump centered his whole immigration policy around finishing the wall and it's not done.

And but Biden does need to step up immigration and border security.

Absolutely.

Arizona is bearing the brunt of of illegal drug trafficking, gun trafficking and smuggling.

And we do need more border security.

This echoes policy ideas on her campaign website, which stresses the need to lobby at the federal level and work with federal authorities to find a solution that falls in line with what Lynn Marcus, a clinical law professor at the University of Arizona, told AZPM is possible at the federal level.

She says state laws and lawsuits over immigration and border security have been a losing battle in federal courts since the 1990s.

That includes Arizona's battle over the controversial Senate bill 1070.

In the Arizona v United States case back in 2012, ten years ago.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution means that the federal government has broad powers over immigration, law enforcement and states don't.

As for solutions on the state level, Hobbs promises increased resources to local law enforcement near the border, as well as for medical facilities and community centers.

She says those entities often deal with the crisis firsthand and deserve more assistance because of it.

Republican Kari Lake's platform, on the other hand, is more direct.

Of course, if you know the Constitution, you know that Article four, Section four calls for the federal government to protect us from invasion.

And under Joe Biden's lack of leadership, we just aren't seeing that.

And we have an invasion at our border.

The cartels, these narco terrorist groups have operational control and they're using Arizona to smuggle people to traffic children and to traffic the most dangerous drug we've ever seen, fentanyl.

The section of the Constitution that Lake cites is commonly known as the guarantee clause and grants states protections to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people.

That includes protections against foreign invasion and violence from within the country.

Lynn Marcus says that guarantee has routinely been seen as referring to a foreign government.

There is a limited circumstances in which states can declare an invasion under the Constitution and that's when there's been an invasion by a foreign power and the Federal Government has not come to the states protection.

And while criminal enterprises like cartels that smuggle drugs or people across the border are organized and powerful, they do not meet the definition of a foreign power.

Marcus also says federal courts have declined invasion cases in the past.

The courts can't decide when there's been an invasion and when there hasn't.

It's up to the federal government to decide this because there's really there really no manageable standards to determine when it is and when it isn't.

And this has been the agreement of other circuit courts as well.

An overarching reason that these decisions are kept at the federal level is international diplomacy.

A state making a decision about a neighboring country could have dire consequences on the relationship between that country and the U.S.. Keep up with all of our fact checks by subscribing to our Fact Check podcast on our website.

And that's our show for this week.

I'm Liliana Soto.

Thanks for watching.