Biography

Raúl Grijalva speaks on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives

An extended biography is available here.

In his sixth term as a Member of Congress, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva remains committed to his constituents in Congressional District 3. Since his election to Congress in 2002, education, job creation, employee rights and the environment have been among Raúl’s top policy concerns. 

As a member of the Committee on Education and The Workforce, Congressman Grijalva has made the reform and full funding of No Child Left Behind his top educational priority for the 113th Congress. He has been instrumental in helping to fund early childhood and preschool programs, improving funding to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, and enhancing services for Limited English Proficient children and their families. He also consistently promoted minimum wage increases and bills that prevent workplace intimidation.

Raúl is also a member of the Committee on Natural Resources and the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulations, which oversees 600 million acres of federal land. As Chairman of the Subcommittee in the 111th Congress, Raúl played the leading role in creating a permanent National Landscape Conservation System within the Department of the Interior and fought successfully to address the maintenance funding shortfall of American public lands. As Ranking Member, his main priorities include protecting wilderness areas and endangered species, defending the Grand Canyon from the threat of expanded uranium mining, and pursuing overdue reforms of the General Mining Law of 1872. He has made effective oversight of oil and gas drilling a hallmark of his time on the Committee.

As Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Raúl has championed affordable health care for every American and has pushed for job creation measures that focus on improving America's infrastructure and economic base. As a long-standing member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- where he chairs the Education Task Force -- Raúl has worked for comprehensive immigration reform and pushed for fair access to quality education for minority communities.