PRESCOTT, AZ - While many people thought 2020 was a unique year, with its massive global shutdowns, 2021 turned out to be more of the same, but even worse.   In 2021, propaganda purveyed by the state-controlled mainstream media continued to mislead Americans about January 6, about COVID-19, vaccines, inflation, illegal immigration and many other matters.  Those willing to tell the truth are chastised by liars, and liars are vaunted as experts.  For those who read my updates, you get a dose of hard reality.  

Here’s a look back on the key legislation I introduced or cosponsored and a summary of other important issues impacting Arizona’s ninth congressional district and all of America. 

As Democrats pushed through their COVID-19 bill in which a mere 9% of the funding addressed the pandemic, I introduced an amendment that would provide $10,000 stimulus checks to Americans hardest hit by the pandemic and lockdowns. The amendment called for the removal of 10 agenda items of the coronavirus relief legislation, including funding for the arts, federal and corporate transit projects, “vaccine confidence activities” and foreign aid.

In response to states that in recent years enacted statutes requiring gun owners to register their handguns, I introduced the Gun-owner Registration Information and Protection (GRIP) Act. This bill prohibits state, localities or any other organization from using federal funding to maintain firearm registry database that list gun-owners who lawfully own or possess firearms. 

I personally visited Yuma numerous times to patrol, examine and inspect our southern border and even joined Pinal County Sheriff Lamb and dozens of volunteers in Casa Grande, Arizona to clean up rubbish left on the ground from the countless illegal immigrants that cross our southern border.  We filled hundreds of garbage bags with trash, needles, knives and drugs. What is taking place in Yuma is appalling. It is evident that we have ceded operational control of the border to the cartels. Nothing comes across the border without the approved consent of the drug cartels. The Biden administration is rewarding the cartels, human traffickers and coyotes whose main business has become smuggling human across our border.

I cosponsored real immigration reform legislation throughout the year including H.R. 1883, the Protect America First Act, which halts all immigration for four years, funds the construction and completion of the wall along the southern border, expedites deportations of illegal aliens, cuts off funding for sanctuary cities, rescinds Mr. Biden’s open border executive orders, and rescinds amnesty programs. Incentivizing more illegal aliens to unlawfully enter our country amidst a pandemic is similar to pouring gasoline on a wildfire.  I also cosponsored the End Child Trafficking Now Act, legislation would combat asylum fraud by requiring a DNA test to determine familial relationship between an alien and an accompanying minor. Those refusing a DNA test will be immediately deported and those caught falsifying familial relations would receive a maximum 10-year penalty.

I sent a letter to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee demanding Congress include language to prioritize the continued and completed construction of the southern border wall and complementary border security as Congress considers legislation to invest in our nation’s infrastructure. Throughout the year, America witnessed the consequences of Mr. Biden’s disastrous open border policies. Gaps in the wall and unfinished sections along the border are only emphasizing the crisis created by Mr. Biden. 

Throughout the year, I took action to defend the rights of the unborn. For example, I joined my pro-life colleagues in filing a discharge petition in support of H.R. 619, the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act states that if a child is born alive after surviving an abortion, any health care practitioner present must exercise the same degree of care to preserve the life and health of the child as any other child of the same gestational age would receive. The survivor must then be immediately transported to a hospital.

I also sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protest its decision lifting the in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion pill mifepristone, which is used to cause an abortion within ten-weeks of conception. Because of the risk it poses to women’s health, the FDA previously required states to only dispense mifepristone in a doctor’s office and taken under the supervision of a health care provider.  

I introduced legislation to secure our critical minerals supply chain.  The American Critical Mineral Independence Act of 2021 would drastically improve our ability to develop critical minerals by streamlining the massive, convoluted permitting process required under the National Environmental Policy Act and lesson our dependence on foreign sources for critical mineral. To read more about this important legislation, click HERE to read an Op-Ed I penned for the Washington Times.

Each year, Congress sponsors a nationwide high school art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district.  Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of announcing the winners of the 2021 Congressional Art Competition. The first-place winner received an $8,000 scholarship to Northern Arizona University and his artwork will be displayed for one year on the wall in the walkway from Cannon House Office Building to the U.S. Capitol where it can be seen by lawmakers, staff and visitors from all over the world. 

Unfortunately, Critical Race Theory found its way into government institutions and even the classrooms of our children this year. In response, my Republican colleagues and I introduced the Combatting Racist Teaching in Schools Act and the Stop Critical Race Theory Act. These two bills would prevent CRT from being taught in elementary and secondary schools and universities and would ban it from being taught in the federal workforce. This poisonous ideology seeks to undermine our society by pitting people against each other to justify government control over all Americans. 

Dr. Fauci has continually failed to provide Americans with accurate information about the COVID-19 pandemic and has shown distrust in the American private sector and American ingenuity and he as to go! In response, I cosponsored the Fire Fauci Act, legislation that would zero out Dr. Fauci’s salary.  It’s long overdue that America be free from Dr. Fauci’s anti-science approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

This year, I also issued a resolution to terminate the COVID-19 emergency declaration issued on March 13, 2020 under the authority of the National Emergencies Act (NEA). My resolution simply requires that Congress do its job and formally debate on terminating the emergency declaration, as required by the law.

This past Summer, I introduced H.R. 3330 the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act, to increase and streamline production of wind, solar, and geothermal energy on public lands while also establishing a cost revenue sharing mechanism that ensures fair return for states, counties, sportsmen, conservation, and taxpayers. For the past eight years, I have led the effort to secure American access to energy while taking care of the people and communities public lands impact the most. 

Another bill I introduced was the Making Excellence Replace Identity Traits (MERIT) Act, legislation that would prohibit government sanctioned racial bigotry by ensuring that no federal funds are provided to any entity that has established a hiring program that uses affirmative action employment preferences as a basis for hiring.  Eradicating the scourge of racial hatred is a priority for the country. Interested in learning more about the MERIT Act? Click here!

In response to numerous media reports of prisoners arrested in connection with the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 being mistreated, I sent a letter to Attorney General Garland requesting information regarding their welfare. Specifically, reports indicate that individuals are being held in solitary confinement without justification for why they have received this status. Individuals arrested for illegal acts on January 6 deserve to be treated fairly and equally to other rioters arrested at events that took place across the country in 2020. 

I also attended a rally in Scottsdale to draw awareness to this issue. These are not unruly or dangerously violent criminals. These are political prisoners who are now being persecuted and bearing the pain of unjust suffering. Individuals arrested for illegal acts on January 6 deserve to be treated fairly.  

In spite of evidence to the contrary, Democrat Representative Jayapal filed an ethics complaint against me alleging that my actions on January 6, 2021, particularly in objecting to the seating of electors for Mr. Biden, violated one or more rules of ethics.  As it turns out, Representative Jayapal objected in 2017 to the seating of electors for President Trump yet she ignored this important detail in her bogus complaint against me. In a bit of good news, the House Committee on Ethics dismissed this baseless complaint filed against me this past June.

This year, the Biden administration’s efforts to strip law abiding gun owners of their second amendment rights was never ending.  For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced a new proposed rule to define the use of a pistol with a stabilizing brace as a short-barreled rifle! This would include a burdensome bureaucratic process as well as having to pay a $200 National Firearms Act tax. To address this backdoor handgun regulation, I cosponsored the Protecting Individual Sovereignty Through Our Laws (PISTOL) Act which provides a statutory definition of what constitutes a pistol that is not subject to bureaucratic interpretation. 

Earlier this year, I voted in favor of a bill that repealed the authorization to use military force in Iraq that was initially passed by Congress in 2002, predicated on misrepresentations by the State Department about weapons of mass destruction. As regular Gosar Newsletter readers know, I seldom agree with Mr. Biden on important policy decisions.  Following my vote, I drafted an editorial that further explains my reasoning why I voted to end forever wars. 

Afghanistan:  In a humiliating defeat of our country in mid-August,  the Taliban routed Biden’s military and his failed military leadership, and in the process billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment was captured by the Taliban.   To compound the military buffoonery, Biden and his woke generals, including the gay agenda promoting Gen. Milley, left thousands of Americans behind in Afghanistan to fend for themselves behind enemy lines.   This military rout and catastrophe is unprecedented in our history.    Our military used to state that it would leave no one behind.   Under the incompetent Biden military, and the woke generals who focus more on men in dresses rather than training men to kill our enemies, we lost a major war, lost billions in military equipment and abandoned thousands of citizens behind enemy lines.   This is a shameful page in Biden’s history. 

This past year, I joined several of my colleagues in cosponsoring a resolution that affirms state’s rights to protect their citizens from the cartel-facilitated invasion along the southern border. Sadly, we are being invaded along the southern border and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants poured into our country each month this past year. All because Joe Biden purposefully failed to protect or secure our southern border. This resolution is a much-needed step in regaining control of our southern border via the exercise of the sovereign power of the states.  

I also strongly objected to Mr. Biden's eco-terrorist nominee and joined several of my colleagues by writing to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee opposing the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to be Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over allegations that she participated in the harmful practice of tree spiking in Clearwater National Forest, a form of eco-terrorism.

I also pushed a resolution to impeach David Chipman, Mr. Biden’s nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) even before he was confirmed. Thankfully, after months and months of pressure from me and other 2A defenders, Mr. Biden withdrew Mr. Chipman’s nomination to run the ATF. This was a huge win for law abiding gun owners and personal liberty!

I expressed my deep disagreement with Mr. Biden’s decision to remove the Hyde Amendment and several other long-standing pro-life protections in his fiscal year 2022 spending plan. The Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, bans federal funding, such as Medicaid, for abortion unless the woman’s life in danger or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. 

Another bill I introduced this year is the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, legislation that restores the Constitution’s basic principle of dividing the federal government into separate branches with independent powers. For too long, the executive branch, regardless of political party, has developed an unbridled concentration of power never envisioned by the Founding Fathers. From forever wars, endless executive orders, to overreaching emergency declarations, the executive has greatly weakened our system of checks and balances. 

There is nationwide distrust in our entire voting system, and for good reason.  In response, I introduced the Securing America’s Election Act of 2021, legislation that would require the use of voter-verified paper ballots or a paper ballot backup in federal elections that if needed, can be counted by hand, an optical scanner, or a similar device. 

One very important bill I introduced this year is the No Tax on Social Security Act of 2021. This legislation would change current tax policies by excluding Social Security benefits from being counted as annual gross income and subject to taxation. It makes no sense for the federal government to punish senior citizens who saved for retirement or who continue to work. This legislation corrects mistakes made by Congress and restores full benefits to America’s senior citizens by excluding Social Security benefits from annual gross income and taxation, ensuring recipients receive the totality of benefits they rightly deserve.

Because of the historic surge of illegal aliens entering the United States through our southern border, I introduced legislation to prohibit the admission of aliens to the United States for 10 years. The fact is, we can’t have legal immigration when we have rampant illegal alien invaders. This is a threat to our national security and our economy and to our citizens. By pausing the admission of aliens to America it will give the United States an opportunity to figure out how to end illegal immigration and put Americans first in line for jobs, education, and other opportunities. 

At a time when American college graduates are struggling to find a job and many are saddled with student loans, our government is incentivizing foreign employees over Americans. In response, I introduced the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act, legislation that would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the Optional Practice Training (OPT) Program. OPT circumvents the H-1B cap by allowing over 100,000 aliens admitted as foreign students to work for up to three years in the United States after graduation. These foreign workers are exempt from payroll taxes making them at least 10-15 percent cheaper than a comparable American worker.

I also introduced the Criminal Alien Removal Clarification Act, legislation that would ensure non-citizens, convicted of a felony or two or more misdemeanors, can be deported from the United States. Current law only includes certain felonies, such as aggravated felonies, and other specific crimes. 

This Summer, I also introduced two bills to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 50 years ago, NEPA was arguably signed into law to be prevent harmful damage to our environment by requiring the federal government review and analyze the environmental effects prior to permitting or granting approval for a project. Today, however, NEPA has been weaponized by radical environmentalists who want to stop nearly any form of economic development.  Endless delays and lawsuits are used to prevent infrastructure projects and job creation throughout the country.  Click here and here to learn more about these bills.

This year, with the help of my amazing staff, I launched “The Gosar Minute” on the Gosar News Network. My team discusses various current events in a short, one minute video clips and my take or involvement in them.  You can view all Gosar Minutes here!

This past year, I called for the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. Under his direction, two million illegal aliens will cross our southern border this year. Secretary Mayorkas has failed to uphold his oath of office.  As a result, the health, safety and security of the American people is at risk. 

I also supported three impeachment resolutions against Joe Biden.

His incompetence, corruption and violation of his oath of office to execute our laws faithfully requires his removal from office.  While he remains in office, our country is at serious risk.

This Fall, I had the privilege of joining the good folks from Prescott Meals on Wheels and had a great time helping deliver meals to constituents. Prescott Meals on Wheels provides nutritional meals to the elderly and disabled, enabling them to live independently with safety and dignity.

September 26th was Gold Star Mother’s and Family Day.  A day set aside each year to recognize a mother’s unspeakable grief from the loss of her child defending our country. I had the humbling honor to attend the Gold Star Mother’s Day Ceremony in Lake Havasu.

I voted against suspending the debt limit every time Congress tried to raise it. I don’t believe Congress should hike the debt ceiling without first making spending cuts to get our fiscal house in order. We are feeling the impact of record high inflation on everyday goods and services. Simply issuing new debt to pay for existing debt is nonsensical. High level of debt stifles economic opportunity and prosperity, making it difficult for most Americans to live the American Dream. I cannot support this irresponsible policy. 

This past Autumn, I cosponsored the Birthright Citizenship Act, a bill that would restrict the granting of automatic citizenship to newborns who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. Other than Canada, the United States is the only other industrialized country that grants automatic citizenship to all children born in this country.

In response to reports that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to “investigate” threats of violence at school board meetings as possible acts of domestic violence, I joined my colleagues in sending a letter to Attorney General Garland demanding the Department of Justice not use the FBI to support this brazen misuse of law enforcement. I also co-sponsored the Championing Our Parents Act. This legislation would prohibit any federal funding to be used to carry out this war against parents.  

I introduced legislation to transfer 232 acres of federal Forest Service land to Gila County for the development of a veterans retreat and community center for the more than 5500 military veterans living in Gila County.  This site is the perfect location for the community center for use as a gathering space for veterans and their families to host retreats, meetings and other events.

In response Mr. Biden’s reckless vaccine mandate, I sent a letter raising grave concerns with these leftist policies further burdening the West.  Mr. Biden is putting our commuting at risk, especially during this intense wildfire season. Almost 6.5 million acres have burned from more than 47,000 fires this year.

A few months ago, I had the privilege to attend and speak at the Arizona Life Coalition monthly meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.  It was great to be with so many like-minded folks who support Arizona’s pro-life community.  Sadly, many in Congress and this administration want to authorize the killing of more innocent babies. Over 62 million abortions have been performed in the United States. Americans should be outraged and ashamed that we have created and supported a culture that fails to protect life in this country. Every innocent human being has value.

It was a privilege to attend the Veterans Day Parade in Prescott, AZ and celebrate our American heroes who defend our country.  God bless you and your families for serving our nation and defending our freedoms and rights!

House Democrats voted to censure me for daring to question their liberal agenda granting amnesty for millions of lawbreakers. I went on the Stew Peters Show to explain to the American people exactly why the Democrats are trying to cancel me. My entire Republican conference was united in support of me and voted against this political stunt.  I am incredibly grateful to Leader McCarthy and everyone who stood up and spoke on my behalf.  President Trump even phoned me to personally thank me for standing up in support of the America First agenda. I will continue to speak out against Mr. Biden’s failures. 

At the end of the year, Democrats in Congress voted for Mr. Biden’s massively reckless $4.9 trillion socialist spending plan that I like to refer to as the Build Back Worse Act. This massive spending bill includes free college tuition and amnesty for millions of illegal aliens already in our country.  The legislation doubles the size of the Internal Revenue Service so they can spy on your banking deposits and go after every penny you earn.  It shamefully removes provisions that protect taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortions.  It includes over $1.2 trillion in crushing tax increases on small business and the middle-class while increasing the national debt by nearly 25%.  Also tucked away in this massive bill is a little-known provision to fund and implement gun control measures, depriving law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights.  Click here to read my press release further explaining why I voted against the Democrats’ socialist legislation.

Lastly, earlier this month the Independent Redistricting Commission completed its task of creating new legislative and congressional districts, something that occurs every 10 years following the decennial census. If I am fortunate enough to be sent back to Congress, the beginning in January 2023, my new Congressional district will be district nine, which includes areas in Mohave County, La Paz County, Yuma County and Maricopa County that I have already represented for the last decade. I will truly miss not having Yavapai County, Pinal County and Gila County in my new district. 

That’s a wrap!  I look forward to 2022.  Happy New Year!