New Challenges Demand New Leaders

Thanks to all the volunteers, supporters and people of Arizona who brought their passion, creativity, time, money, and relationships to our campaign to make a better Arizona. 

[Photo by Luis Colon]

Parraz: “Instead of divisive laws that do nothing, we need to come together around solutions like earned citizenship.”

SB 1070 undermines public safety, leads to racial profiling, creates an ugly climate for business and does nothing to secure the border. SB 1070 is unconstitutional leads to lawsuits that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Immigration is a federal responsibility and Congress, not state, county or local governments, needs to take action to address all of the issues that are a result of a broken immigration system. The McCain, Brewer and Arpaio model of attacking immigrants as scapegoats does nothing about the economic recession or jobs, and just divides us.

But I do not just oppose SB1070; I have worked with Arizonans to stop it. I brought delegations of people to Brewer’s office to speak out against SB1070 while it was being drafted.

People want solutions, not laws that attack immigrants. I support a process for immediate authority to stay and work, coupled with earned citizenship for those who qualify.

I am fully committed to working towards passing comprehensive immigration reform that includes border security and provisions for addressing the 11 million undocumented workers in this country and addressing future workforce needs. SB 1070 does nothing to address these issues.

Randy Parraz was born and raised in a working class family. His father was a Deputy Sheriff and his mother was a clerk at JC Penney’s. He graduated from Berkeley and Harvard, and then turned down high-paying jobs to spend the last 16 years as a community organizer and educator. He is a leader who gets things done.

Parraz organized strawberry workers, exposed Sheriff Arpaio and worked with Arizona construction workers. He inspires people, and backs his vision with action, and brings people together.

He lives in Scottsdale with his two beautiful daughters, Natalia and Mikabella.

PHOENIX AZ – This week, National Public Radio said that Parraz would be the most exciting candidate to go up against McCain. His electric and inspiring speeches have brought in new voters offline and online. Parraz’s campaign for US Senate has surged online with the support of enthusiastic new voters, bloggers and netroots leaders. Online donations, including hundreds of small dollar donors, have doubled in a period of weeks while support on social networks and within the blogosphere has taken off. Many key netroots leaders have joined state leaders in enthusiastically endorsed Parraz’s campaign. Arizona bloggers have been following the race closely and provided critical early momentum.

A growing number of bloggers at Daily Kos have endorsed Randy Parraz, along with the founder of Netroots Nation, Gina Cooper.  “Randy Parraz knows who he is as a leader and the principles he stands for,” Cooper noted. “In a political environment where special interests often dominate the conversation, Randy doesn’t let outside forces make decisions for him.”

Other netroots leaders supporting Parraz include legendary organizer and Obama guru (and Parraz’ professor at the Kennedy School) Marshall Ganz; leaders of Blue America, Blog America, and True Mexican. Online groups such as People Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and 1 million Strong against SB1070 have been pushing Parraz’ campaign. Dozens of videos made by supporters have been showing up on YouTube and have been spreading virally to potential supporters’ inboxes.

Mike Trujillo, Parraz Campaign Manager, said “Blogger support has made this race competitive. They’ve spread the word, giving Arizona voters information they were not getting through traditional media sources.”

Arizona netroots leader Dan O’Neal personally endorsed Randy Parraz a few days ago, stating that “it is not a small thing to understand – the political realization – that he can win! – Randy can beat McCain because he brings into the political process voters, Latinos, labor, progressives, and independents.”