Never double down on stupid.
Via Arizona Daily Star:
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz. cannot escape the questions about his now infamous call to boycott Arizona — even when he’s in the most friendly of confines.
Speaking Monday to the Democrats of Greater Tucson, the five-term congressman seeking re-election in Congressional District 3 received a standing ovation and warm applause throughout his speech.
But during questions, he was asked yet again about his boycott call in 2010, in which he urged conventions and businesses to avoid Arizona in order to show how destructive SB1070 was.
As he’s done in the past, Grijalva stood behind his decision, while offering some insight about his thought-process:
“My opponents are running on the fact that ‘Oh my God, he said the ‘b’ word and he has caused all this dire consequences to come the state. Let me be unapologetic: we needed to nationalize this SB1070 issue. We couldn’t let it go in to the dark corner and just be a funny, little thing that happened in Arizona. This was a precedent, and the Supreme Court ruled on the precedent that it was unconstitutional in many aspects.”
“We asked the Attorney General to intervene, we asked the administration to intervene. And we said there is going to be economic consequences and there should be. For a state that can be this punitive, there is going to be consequences.”
“Have I taken some hits on that? Absolutely. But the unapology is about this: We are elected and sometimes, there is a direct attack, there is a direct issue that affects a group of people that are being marginalized. . . I’m not going to tolerate it. I’m going to speak up every time. I spoke up then and God willing, it will never happen again.”
HT: GWP