Delina Disanto is running for Congress in District 4 as a Democrat. She takes aim at U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar [R-District 4], who has served in the seat since 2011, and associates him with fellow Republican President Donald Trump, who she opposes.
“He attacks certain people who have been great leaders throughout the years,” Disanto said of Trump. “And then Paul Gosar approves of that. He tweets all the things President Trump says and does, and sometimes they’re a little off balance and really divisive for the country.”
But Disanto believes that the best argument for her candidacy comes from her commitment to bipartisanship. She speaks with pride of her introduction to politics, working for and being mentored by Republican Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, when she lived in Durango in the 1990s.
“My first day with Sen. Nighthorse Campbell was Sept. 11, 2001, 9/11,” Disanto said. “I learned so much about how our country pulls together when it needs to, why legislation is passed, and I went around the state forSenator Campbell, for town hall meetings, and I talked about every issue that [also] affects Northern Arizona — water, the environment, health care, veterans issues, national security — especially in that time. I think I’d be able to go up against Paul Gosar and go toe-to-toe with him on anything, because I’m going to call him out on legislation that he didn’t vote for.”
Disanto holds many positions that put her right at home with the mainstream Democratic Party, but believes she can appeal to conservative voters in the staunchly Republican district. She speaks of being a proud gun owner, but also supports red flag laws and background checks on gun purchases. A registered nurse who has worked as finance director for hospitals, she speaks frequently about health care affordability, saying that while she thinks proposals like a Medicare For All would be too disruptive, she wants people to be able to choose to enroll in a government health care program.
“Right now with COVID- 19, people are getting hit with health care bills of $100,000 or $500,000,” Disanto said. “And a lot of people are uninsured or under insured… [It’s led to a] massive economic impact of those people losing homes or cars.”
In dealing with the pandemic, Disanto argues that Congress needs to do much more to fight the disease but also the economic fallout. She calls for extending the expanded unemployment benefits that expire at the end of the month to October, and a new round of direct aid to businesses, which she believes should focus more on small companies than large corporations.
Disanto said that schools need to be able to open soon, but believes that they need assistance in order to be able to do so safely in the midst of the pandemic. She took aim at cuts to public education, and argued that schools should have enough funding to social distance through smaller class sizes and more teachers.
Disanto believes that her positions on environmental conservation in Arizona will help her appeal to voters who may have voted for Paul Gosar or Donald Trump previously.
“There’s a lot of Republicans I talk to that are concerned about the environment,” Disanto said. “They talk about the effect of what Gosar is trying to do. He wants to mine uranium in the Grand Canyon, and allowing energy companies to [bypass] most of the EPA protections that Trump has reversed, and Gosar has agreed with. So I can talk to them about the environmental impacts.”
Disanto thinks that environmental conservation is a way to help rural Northern Arizona, not only through preserving the natural beauty, but by investing in clean energy jobs. If she were in Congress, she would want to help pass a large infrastructure package, which she believes would help rural Arizona.
“This would help rural America,” Disanto said, pointing to decay in infra- structure around the country. “Investing in America, fixing our electrical grid system.”
