Local opinion: I’m proud to finish this campaign as the working families candidate

When I stepped off the Tucson City Council, I had the option of choosing the path of least resistance and vying for the State House. But in a safe Democratic district like ours, I could not envision myself fighting for our community with Alma Hernandez at the top of the ticket while those I love continue to endure inaction, cruelty, and disinvestment at the direction of right-wing and corporate operatives who guide her decision-making.

I entered this race for the State Senate because I fundamentally believe Tucson’s working families deserve a senator who will fight for them, not corporate and foreign interests. That is why I am incredibly proud to enter the final stretch of this primary endorsed by the Arizona Working Families Party.

For too long, Arizona has been held back by leaders who treat public investment as a liability rather than an opportunity and prioritize corporations over working people. The result is a state where workers live paycheck to paycheck, housing is entirely out of reach, electric bills are at an all-time high, and local communities are forced to compete for crumbs instead of building the quality of life we deserve.

My aspirations for Arizona are built directly on the lived realities of people who struggle because I am one of them, and I know what it is like to be one crisis away from ruin. My aspirations for Arizona include a state where dignity is guaranteed, housing is within reach, all have healthcare, education is fully supported, workers are protected, and opportunity is not limited by zip code.

That means undoing generations of harm inflicted on low-income people, seniors, veterans, people of color, LGBTQ+ Arizonans, women, immigrants and people with disabilities, while investing in renter protections, prevention and recovery, early childhood through postsecondary education, fair compensation for workers, and transportation infrastructure that connects people with the jobs and support they depend on.

Achieving this vision is impossible when politicians are bought by the very corporate forces standing in its way.

From Day 1, I pledged not to take a single penny from corporate PACs or organizations that exist to defeat working-class values. My opponent chose a different path, fueling her campaign with hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs representing utilities, realtors, and developers, and a larger collective of Phoenix business leaders. It shows in the wasteful mailers touting bills that never passed, which sound good in title but, in actuality, sought to undercut the affordable housing and renter protections Tucson desperately needs. Why else would Airbnb invest a quarter million dollars into her?

This corporate capture directly explains her legislative record. It is why our district’s Democratic Committee issued a statement of concern regarding her 151 votes with Republicans over the last four years: support for sharing identifiable information about undocumented people with ICE, quashing attempts to stop data centers, limiting local budget authority, restricting First Amendment rights to stifle Palestinian protest, and handing Donald Trump the tools to rewrite our Constitution.

Rather than answering to her voters, she and her allies have resorted to attacks on where I’m from, my age, my experience, and my character. That is a strange posture for a campaign built around inflated credentials, including claims that she is a professor at Arizona State University and a practicing lawyer, despite public records showing both to be false.

I am a proud born-and-raised Tucsonan who got to represent the community I love on the city council. I am older today than she was when first elected. I entered this race with a decade more experience than she had then, along with intimate knowledge of how state decision-making impacts our county, city, and schools. And I am proud to stand alongside proven champions for working families like Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, dozens of officials in Tucson and across the State of Arizona, and a broad coalition of unions, organizers, educators and students.

We aspire for a government that fights for and is accountable to working families. With that in mind, I ask voters in Legislative District 20 to vote for myself and Betty Villegas for State House on or before July 21.