Jennifer Masse: Why Rep. Gosar Hasn't Earned Another Term in Congress

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Rep. Paul Gosar has been the Congressman for Arizona’s 4th Congressional District since 2011.  When he was first elected in 2010, he was hailed as the Tea Party candidate and was endorsed by disgraced politicians Sarah Palin and Joe Arpaio. There are many reasons Paul Gosar does not deserve another term, but here we will focus on the top three:

1. Gosar wants to sell Arizona’s public lands to the highest bidder. 
During his career Rep. Gosar has accepted the fourth highest contribution amounts from the energy and natural resources sector. He has co-sponsored 32 of the 84 anti-public lands bills, despite the fact that 88% of Arizonans believe that public lands are essential to Arizona’s economy. Claiming  “federal overreach,” he champions irresponsible uranium mining and livestock industries regardless of the harm they cause to public lands, water, and health, especially that of Arizona’s indigenous peoples. 
2. Gosar refuses to acknowledge or debate different ideas.

Our current Congressman engages only with constituents who support his extremist agenda even though his job is to listen to and represent all constituents in his district. He is currently being sued for blocking "offensive" CD4 constituents on social media. After a lawsuit was threatened, he reluctantly unblocked constituents who challenged his policy positions. However, while the lawsuit is in progress he can ignore dissenting voices and block them again if he chooses to do so. Last summer during the effort to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, Gosar refused to hold a town hall on the issue in Prescott. To avoid meeting with constituents who disagree with him, Gosar has replaced in-person town halls with Facebook Live town halls where questions that challenge him are passed over and the names of dissenters are redflagged. While hiding behind a digital wall, Gosar has made interacting with him about policies critical to the health and well-being of ALL CD4 constituents nearly impossible. 


3. Gosar's regular embrace of alternative, far-right "facts" is an embarrassment to Arizona on the national stage. 

In October 2017, in an interview with Vice News, Gosar claimed that the Charlottesville rally was organized by a member of the Occupy Wall Street group who was an “Obama sympathizer.” He also stated it would be interesting to find out if George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, funded the white supremacists. When questioned about these statements by a CNN reporter he walked away yelling “Fake news!” 

In January 2018, Gosar posted several memes on his Twitter account with unfounded claims like "DACA-aged illegals account for nearly 14% of all first degree murders in Arizona.” These falsehoods were quickly debunked. However, our Congressman did not repudiate his false or misleading claims. Instead, he called publicly for all “illegal immigrants” invited to attend the State of Union to be arrested and deported on arrival. 

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2018/01/29/rep-paul-gosar-misstates-crime-statistics-daca-aged-immigrants/1070070001/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/paul-gosar-calls-for-illegal-immigrants-attending-state-of-the-union-to-be-arrested-deported/article/2647528

Stay tuned through the summer for more reasons Rep. Gosar doesn't deserve your vote for another term as OUR voice in the House.

[Jennifer Masse is a co-leader of Women's March on Prescott, team leader of Prescott Indivisible's Human Rights group, and the mother of two young boys. Unlike Rep. Gosar, she lives and works in CD4.]  






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