The following is an AZPM original production.

♪ UPBEAT RHYTHMIC BRASS MUSIC Hello and welcome to this latest from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm your host, Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, we'll discuss two people who made opposite decisions on running for Congress and protesters made their presence felt at the installation of the new U of A president.

Joining me to discuss these and other topics are Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Prerana Sannappanavar of the Arizona Daily Star, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, and Christopher Conover of AZPM.

Thank you all for being here.

Paul, I wanna start off with a couple of minutes on the funeral of Raul Grijalva.

I know media formerly wasn't allowed in.

You had some great coverage, some great coverage over at the Sentinel with some photos and everything else.

What stood out about the event?

Almost some of the vibe, the atmosphere to start with.

I mean, one thing that was really great is you see sort of a who's who of Tucson waiting in line to go in.

Everyone kind of set up and waited.

There was a period where everyone had to line up and then as they went through the security line, so you kind of see, get to everybody's seats.

So I was stationed outside on Stone.

So I got to photograph not only people going in, but then also kind of the ceremony that they had to bring Grijalva's remains into the ceremony.

And it's kind of really interesting.

I mean, it's actually, he was his remains.

He was cremated.

And so his remains were actually in an ola, which is a pottery made by a Tohono O'odham artist, specifically for him.

So it's just an interesting little detail.

And of course on it had a bolo tie, one of Raul's bolo ties with a little bit of turquoise set to it.

And then of course that was done by a procession of uniformed military members, and then they took that into it.

So you were able to see that little bit of ceremony on the outside, which was, I thought was kind of really interesting.

It was really gracious and it was really poignant.

Yeah, so Caitlin, we've talked about Raul Grijalva's death for a couple of programs of The Press Room, but neither you nor Chris was actually here to talk about him.

Is there a story?

Is there some experience you had in covering him either that you could share with our audience?

Because I think there are so many great stories people have told about him.

What about you?

I mean, he just was always so accessible, even as a student.

He didn't treat you any differently.

I mean, I first encountered him as a student and he spoke to me with the same level of professionalism and respect as he did the working reporters in the room, and he never changed that demeanor.

As he got older, as he rose the ranks, he always treated everyone with that same level of courtesy and respect.

And it's sad to see that missing, especially as politics gets more and more divided.

Yeah, Chris, how about you?

I'm gonna play off one of the things Caitlin said is his accessibility, and I've warned a number of new reporters here at AZPM.

When you called Congressman Grijalva's office to set up a phone interview, you'd talk to Ruben Reyes, or if you called DC, one of his staff there, and they'd always say, "Oh yes, yes, "we'll have the congressman call you back."

And I said, "You have to be ready "because your phone will ring."

And this voice, when you pick it up, will say, "Hey, it's Raul."

And it will take you a minute to realize that that's Congressman Grijalva who has called you back personally on the other end, and he was always so accessible.

And we had a chance for our show, The Buzz, on the radio side to sit down with one of his daughters, Adelita, and talk about her dad, not Congressman Grijalva, but her dad.

And she had some great stories about him, but what it came down to is the Congressman Grijalva that we all knew, yep, that was him.

There wasn't much difference at home.

That's who he was.

And at its core, Paul, The Memorial Service, celebration of life, I mean, these obviously come fraught with a lot of different kinds of emotions, and yet, based on what Chris and Caitlin are saying, what you've said, it feels like there was, I mean, whether it's big names like Nancy Pelosi and AOC showing up, or Republicans like David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani, we can read things into that, sure, but it does actually show something to show up for something like this.

So obviously, that said a lot about the kind of person and Congressperson Raul Grijalva was as well.

Yeah, very much so, and then one thing about the celebration of life's party, it was a party, really, it was a party afterwards.

I mean, there were hundreds of people in line, they stood in line to be greeted by Adelita.

She was giving out hugs to everyone who came in.

And then there was somebody who was like, "Hey, do you want a beer?"

And there was a plate of Mexican food, and they came in and there were Mariachi actually was playing.

It was a really great event.

And I think it's sort of true to the center of who he was.

You had a thousand people who came just to see that, just go to that event, people who were dancing, people who were engaging, who were laughing, who were telling stories about him.

And I mean, you kind of go like, yeah, that's how I think a lot of us, all of us want to remember, really, is not just like as this official person, this important person, but also a live human being who had relationships and also gets celebrated at the end of their life.

Yeah, Caitlin, what are your thoughts on that?

Especially even the partisanship aspect that to me really came to light.

Oh, absolutely.

But it's along that same vein.

It's similar with John McCain.

He treated everybody with respect.

I mean, people were able to put aside party lines and their differences to pay respect to that.

It's just a class act.

And with Raul, I mean, he inspired generations of leaders, especially in the Hispanic community.

The young leaders that we have today, Roxana Valenzuela, the mayor of South Tucson, said that he was the first leader that looked like her and really inspired her to run.

Patrick Robles, Andres Cano.

I mean, these are young people that are rising to the ranks that he directly impacted and inspired to run.

Even his niece, Adriana Grijalva, who just was reelected for a second term of ASUA president, she visited my class the other day and said that he had a direct impact in her deciding to run.

She was never interested in politics until she started interning for his office.

So Chris, one more thing as far as Adelita was concerned.

Did you get a chance to ask her about how she felt about the outpouring of support for her death?

She was, I'm not sure amazed was the right word because obviously she's very active in the community.

As an elected official, she knows the community, but she was really touched by all the people showing up at the celebration of life.

She said her house and her mom's houses really looked like a florist shop the last few weeks.

So many people from all over the country sending flowers and notes.

She said the whole family, being the spokesperson for the family, was really, really touched and hearing so many of the stories that maybe they hadn't heard before, but they all had that theme of accessibility or this is who Raul was and take him or leave him.

That's who he was, but he was accessible and things like that and they were really touched.

So Caitlin, now that Congressman Grijalva has been laid to rest, now let's talk a little bit about politics.

Daniel Hernandez has officially entered the race.

People know him obviously from the horrible shooting with Gabby Giffords and many others, obviously, who passed.

He was a state lawmaker, he ran for Congress and failed before.

Anything standing out about his candidacy to you, do you think there's something that is going to let him stand apart if in fact the Grijalva daughter does in fact decide to run, which we expect, but we don't know for sure, what sort of a race would that be?

I mean, I think if she decides to run, whoever is running against her that's a challenge ahead of them.

I mean, I think Daniel Hernandez could have a tough road ahead of him even if she doesn't run.

He has that incident with whether he actually graduated or not from the U of A that he got called on the carpet before.

I think if he can get ahead of that, maybe a little better than he did last time or perhaps explain it a little more clearly, it won't be an issue, but it'll be interesting to see how the opposition is this time around.

I mean, we have Daniel Gutierrez is back in the race again, he ran a very different campaign against Grijalva than I suspect that he will against whoever else is challenging him for this seat.

Yeah, and Paul, Daniel's sister gets a lot of attention for making noise at the state legislature.

Certainly.

I almost wonder without, it almost feels like she's from a slightly different wing of the Democratic Party.

I don't know if Daniel would fit into that as well.

Do you see more of a, is it possible we're gonna see a moderate to conservative Democrat versus a more liberal Democrat and could that be something that divides the electorate?

I mean, I think that's a really good question.

That's probably how, I mean, Daniel has to sort of figure out how to make sure that he's different enough from Adelita if she runs that he can show the electorate that they should pick him.

And then of course he's going to have to run for against the Republicans.

There are what, six Republicans who are running?

That'll be a pretty big fight.

And that will also maybe slightly give us the contours of how the Democrats are gonna have to talk about these because certainly you have Butierrez, but you also have lots of other people.

I'm just forgot his name right now, but he actually promoted himself with the Sheriff of Pinal County.

And so you see how like the Republicans are already kind of trying to lay in the groundwork of whether you want to talk about.

The striking thing is like, what are they gonna be the main issues that they're gonna wanna push?

I mean, one thing of course is like a lot of these guys focused on the border.

And we see how maybe the border is maybe less of an issue now or maybe still.

So even something like that.

And there's gonna be big issues about what to do with housing, what to do with inflation, what to do with prices for groceries.

All those things are really gonna come into play.

So I think Daniel has to really show that he's different enough from not Adelita without blowing his up his relationship with the party.

Well, and when it comes to the border, this is truly a border district, especially with the way it was redrawn to include Bisbee and Douglas and of course Yuma.

So the border issues, I think also you can't necessarily use some of the national border talking points because now we're looking at tariffs on the ground.

What's happening with Nogales, what's happening with Douglas and places like that.

So it's much more of a local issue than it is a national issue.

So if whomever is running starts playing the national on both sides, cards on that, it may not play as well in this district.

Caitlin last thing on this generally.

So we found out now the secretary of state, Fontes is not going to run for the seat.

That could be many reasons.

It could be that he read the tea leaves and thought, well, maybe I'm not gonna win.

But he also put out a statement saying, I firmly believe the president is laying the groundwork to cancel elections in 2026 after this recent executive order.

Regardless of the reasons that Adrian Fontes is or is not running, how does that change the race?

The fact that he is not gonna be in this one?

I mean, I don't think it does much.

I honestly think he's been eyeing governor this whole time and that's more of why he's not running for this.

I would love it if he was hopeful to protect the election, if that's really what he wants to do.

But I think he's eyeing that governor seat more than he was CD7.

It sort of reminded me when we always talk about Doug Ducey, what's he gonna do next?

And the idea was he's not big enough to run for president, but he doesn't wanna be a senator because then he's one of a hundred.

And I sort of, again, not knowing what Adrian Fontes is exactly thinking.

Do you think I'm one of 435 potentially, or I'm someone who can really make noise against Trump and maybe make a difference for his own elections?

I mean, I think being secretary of state is really, really gonna be an important position.

It's a position that has some power, but it's also a position that has some rhetorical power about making sure we protect elections and doing that.

And there's gonna be a major election in just a few years.

He's gonna have to run again.

And I get the feeling that there's been some, maybe Democrats, who go, if you're in a big statewide, you wanna statewide position, you need to stay there because we need to still hold these positions through the next year.

However everyone break loose and then go run for Congress is not necessarily what the party needs.

Chris, last thing on this.

One of the things I found interesting about his announcement is he made that announcement the day of the congressman's funeral.

And in talking to people, one of the things I heard was, well, it's a good thing he got out of the race because he doesn't know the district because a lot of people saw that as pretty tone deaf.

You could have waited till the day after the funeral.

Don't take the headlines away from the funeral.

And I had heard some bubbles of things like that even before he made the announcement that now he doesn't know the district.

Yes, he grew up here, but he lives in Maricopa County and has for a long time.

Hate those people.

So.

(laughing) Says the guy who lives in Maricopa County, right.

But yeah, I think he may have read some tea leaves not only on who else is expected to run, but also how he might have been received here.

Prerana, other big news this week that has nothing to do with who is running for office.

And that was President Garimella being officially installed this week as U of A president.

First of all, hasn't he been in the position for a number of months at this point?

Yes, he has.

He's been in the position since October 1st.

But this is also what happened with former President Robert Robbins.

He was also kind of officially installed months after he already took on the position.

So what stood out?

It seems like the protests are what I was really, and even what stood out as well was Mayor Romero, as she's walking past the protesters raising a fist in solidarity, I suppose.

What stood out for you as someone who covers this?

Absolutely, I think the protests themselves were really big and I didn't expect it to be as big.

I mean, obviously all protests make a statement and they have significance, but this was sort of really literally and symbolically very loud.

Because as the installation was happening, Provost Marx was giving comments and then there was a native land acknowledgement.

During all of that, there were students who were standing right by the barricades outside of Old Main and they were shouting slogans of trying to keep the cultural and resource centers open.

And the larger fight that they have is about keeping DEI because obviously this has been reported that post Trump's DEI orders, the president and the administration, they've kind of taken down the Office of Diversity and Inclusion website and they've removed the words committed to diversity and inclusion from the native land acknowledge statement.

So this is kind of just a larger fight towards that.

And obviously Mayor Romero kind of pumping her fist into the air was very symbolic again, but again, none of the reporters actually got to ask her what she meant by that, but one can make assumptions that it could be in solidarity of the protesters.

Did the president or any spokespeople for the university comment on the protests?

No, they did not.

They did comment on the protests which happened yesterday, which was the same kind of fight to keep the cultural and resource centers open.

There were about 100 faculty, students, staff related to the cultural centers.

They walked all the way to Old Main and they hand delivered the DEI petition outside of Old Main and they actually wanted to deliver to the President, but the door was locked, so they left it outside.

And as of when they were deliver it had about 3,300 signatures.

So this is just kind of a message that the community is sending to the administration that they really wanna keep DEI.

And in response to that, U.A.

spokesperson, Mitch Zak said that he appreciates, he and the administration and the president, they kind of appreciate and acknowledge what's coming from the community, but they have to take into account all the federal, the federal research funding, the Pell grant funding, everything that comes from the administration.

Chris, anything to stand out for you about this?

A lot of what she said, certainl I don't think Mayor Romero does many things like that by mistake.

She certainly knew what she was doing and she was standing, the pictures I saw, I was out there early and then Hannah Cree was covering it for us.

The pictures that I saw, she was very close to the president physically when she did that.

I'm sure he saw it.

This is one of those times I'm glad I'm not president of a university because as we said, there's a lot to balance.

There's federal funding and there's plenty of federal funding on moving around this campus.

But then there are a lot of people, 3,000 people took the time to sign a petition.

That's a lot of people that these decisions affect and he's got to figure out how to balance it.

I'm glad it's not my job.

I mean, I think really what stood out for me was the sit out by the student body president and many members of the executive team.

They made a decision the night before that they were not gonna participate.

She was supposed to give a speech right before the governor and put out a statement on Instagram the night before saying she was gonna stand in solidarity with students who were feeling unheard and overlooked.

She was visiting my class that morning before she went and protested with students and talked a lot about the relationship that she has had with President Garimella versus President Robbins and his level of accessibility.

It does not sound like he's been accessible to student leadership at all.

She said that with President Robbins, for all his faults, she had his cell phone number and could call or text him when she needed something and he would respond.

She has to go up the chain and does not get much face time with him, does not get phone calls with him.

She actually said that he spends more time communicating with the Bobcats, which is the student group that liaises with donors and the foundation than he does with the elected student officials.

So I think that's quite telling.

Are you hearing that as well, Prerana?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I think even yesterday when we were at the march to deliver the DEI petition, the protesters were just talking about how they haven't heard from the president at all, like at all about what he thinks of DEI, where he stands on DEI.

It's just coming to them with mixed messages of, oh, we are still dedicated to DEI, but at the same time taking out the words from the land acknowledgement statement.

So what they really want, and I think what they're really frustrated and hungry for is a response.

Obviously they want a response that says, oh, we keep the cultural centers, but at this point they just want the administration to acknowledge and respond to them.

Okay, I'm not even sure how many of our viewers or listeners know what the provost would do, but there are some provost finalists that have come to visit the university.

Can you give us an idea of where these folks have come from and what the university may be looking for?

Absolutely, so the provost search, so first of all, the provost position is someone who kind of looks at all the faculty and academic functioning and faculty development and student affairs.

And obviously the position is now being held in the interim by Ron Marx.

And when President Garamilla, he came to the U of A, December 10th is when he put out an announcement saying that they're moving ahead with the provost search.

And after months of kind of filtering and interview process, there have been four candidates who have reached the final round, and three have already been to campus for in-person interviews and recruitment visit.

And so two of those three candidates are from Purdue University, which is again something notable because President Garamilla was at Purdue University before he was president of the University of Vermont.

And even in prior searches, when they were hiring the senior vice president for research, faculty and students and staff were kind of talking about how these really high level positions are coming from universities that the Preston has been at before.

So two of them are from Purdue University, and one is from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

And I think I've sat at all of the open forums.

Each candidate has an open forum where all faculty, students, staff can come and ask them questions.

And in those forums, one thing that has always stood out for me is the DEI question.

Every candidate is being asked about how they're gonna deal with DEI.

And all the candidates I think unanimously are just trying to do the balancing game.

They're talking about how we're gonna have to watch what we say publicly, but at the same time acknowledging that the U of A is a Hispanic Serving Institution, and DEI is a part of its core and a part of its essence, and it's not something that just goes away and the legislation cannot make it go away.

So that's something that stood out for me from the Provost search.

So the last thing on that is there a feeling, you mentioned the Purdue connection with President Garimella.

Is there a feeling that the Provost is often a lock step with the President, and the President is going to be able to be the one to make the call so we're almost like a Governor, Lieutenant Governor kind of thing?

Absolutely, so what happens after the open forums is all of the faculty, anyone who attends the open forums, they fill out a feedback form, and all of that directly goes to the President.

So the President is the one who kind of makes the final decision.

And obviously the President and the Provost have to kind of be in tandem.

They have to keep communicating, they have to keep talking about faculty and students and the academic mission.

And I think the sense of what I've gotten so far is that Provost Marx has been the person that all these cultural center folks are talking to about DEI, so he's kind of the point person to get to the administration and the President.

Paul, let's move on to a totally different story.

You did really interesting reporting on Raytheon protests which happened in late 2023.

Group called the Tucson Coalitio for Palestine protests at the UA Science and Technology Park, specifically related to a building that is leased to Raytheon.

Just give us a little bit of, I think people can guess with its Raytheon and a group called Tucson Coalition for Palestine what they were protesting, but what was the protest about specifically and how many people got involved?

So the protest had a couple of hundred people and they were there really specifically to protest against Raytheon's production of military weapons, bombs, missiles, et cetera, and all that going and being used in Gaza.

Again, part of Israel's war with Hamas, which has also killed a lot of civilians.

And so there's been kind of a continuous series of protests against Raytheon.

There was protests here at the UA campus as well about the war in Gaza.

So this group of people, a hundred people, a few dozen went and actually protested sort of on the property.

Pima County Sheriff's deputies asked them to leave.

A group of them decided that they didn't want to leave immediately and they ended up being under arrest.

There's four of them specificall and they've sued on the idea that their actions are protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is a federal act and then there's a state one that's basically the same thing.

And the idea is that the police, it doesn't mean you can do things illegal because you have a religious belief that you can, but what it says is that-- So it's not like legislative immunity.

It's not a legislative immunity.

It's a good one.

But really it's that the police and other authorities have to act in the least restrictive means.

And so in this particular case, the argument is it's not that they pushed them off the property and not necessarily that they arrested them.

It's the fact that the county has continued to prosecute them.

They're all being charged with misdemeanor trespassing.

And so their attorney, his name is Greg Kuykendall, who spent a lot of time actually using RFRA to defend other people and he's been pretty successful at it.

One major case that really happened was with the folks who were activists with no more deaths.

They were prosecuted for leaving water and food and Cabeza Prieta, which is a nationally protected land.

And there the feds sided them with trespassing and Kuykendall said, "Look, that violates RFRA.

"They have a religious belief to be there "because they're trying to save people from dying."

And they won their case.

And there was another case by Amy Knight who worked for Greg and she made similar arguments and actually helped defend an activist who was with the tribe about the construction of a border wall and Organ Pipe.

And so really the central argument is can the government restrict your religious freedom and how is it the least restrictive means?

And so there's a balanced test in that.

And so right now the judge has to decide whether he accepts jurisdiction for this case, whether it's his or he sends it back down to Green Valley.

And then the other one is whether or not he agrees that RFRA does protect people.

So theoretically, he may agree and they may have their charges waived.

He may disagree, in which case they actually have to go through the prosecution.

So we'll have to see.

And he said he would take it on an advisement.

We expect a decision maybe in a week or two.

And briefly these four are all of different religious affiliations.

Correct.

One woman is a Jewish rabbi.

One gentleman is a pastor.

And then the other two just have said, this is my own personal belief.

And so yeah, I mean, there's definitely, one thing with the case, one of the cases of No More Deaths, is that the test isn't like, do you have to show what you're religious?

You don't have to prove that you're a Baptist.

You don't have to prove that you're Catholic.

You have to prove that you believe this enough.

One of the gentlemen who was done, he essentially argued that he was an animist, that he believed the desert was important by itself.

And he won because that was enough.

So, you know, and we'll see whether or not the judge agrees with this.

But I mean, the structure is there for it.

And, you know, again, Kuykendall has actually done fairly well in these cases.

Chris, any brief thoughts on this?

It's interesting just looking at RFRA and the history of it.

It comes out of a US Supreme Court case that the justices wrote, the First Amendment protects religion, but, you know, general laws and it's fine.

And that's what RFRA came from.

And it's changed over time.

It's always been a little bit controversial, but it's changed over time, especially since gay marriage was allowed.

That's when we really saw RFRA coming up, but the way it's been used has changed over time.

But yeah, it's been used very successfully here.

And you've seen this a number of times in those cases.

Yeah, and so we'll be watching closely on that and probably gonna cover in the Sentinel what's the decision is that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, waiting to see when the judge comes up with the decision and then we'll kind of figure out what the consequences of that decision are.

Again, with the case maybe completely waived and we're done or the case could get kicked down to Green Valley in which case we'll have to see what happens.

And we're certainly going to go into an appeal court.

Terrific, okay.

Paul, Caitlin, Prerana, Chris, thank you all for being here on this edition of The Press Room.

Thank you all very much for watching as well.

We'll be back with another edition coming up next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Have a good night.