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- By Levi Rickert
Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer announced on Tuesday he is running for the Republican nomination for the redrawn 2nd Congressional District seat in Arizona. There are seven candidates vying for the nomination. They will face off on August 2, 2022 in the Republican primary.
The winner of the Republican nomination will in all probability face Rep. Tom O’Halleran, a Democrat, who currently serves in Arizona’s 1st congressional district. After the maps were redrawn, O’Halleran will have to run the 2nd congressional district if he is to serve in the next Congress.
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The new redrawn 2nd congressional district includes a portion of the Navajo Nation, Flagstaff, Prescott, the White Mountains and parts of southern Arizona.
The redrawn district favors a Republican candidate. Votes within the new redrawn district went for Donald Trump in the November 2020 by eight-points.
“There is no time like the present,” Lizer said to Native News Online in a telephone interview on Tuesday when asked why he is running for Congress. “I have garnered national acclaim during the past three years I have served as vice president of the Navajo Nation.”
Lizer says his platform will be centered around dual taxation, energy and opportunity zones, a program aimed to promote economic development.
Lizer, who has been vice president of the Navajo Nation since Jan. 15, 2019, spoke virtually at the Republican National Convention in 2020. Lizer serves with Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, who spoke virtually to the Democratic National Convention in 2020.
A strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, Lizer was invited to the White House during the Trump administration. He cites these visits as a reason he is prepared to serve in Congress.
Even though, he and President Nez have differing political views, he says the fact he and President Nez have been able to work together demonstrates he can work in a bipartisan fashion if elected to Congress.
Lizer says there is need to have more Native Americans serving in Congress who can work for issues important to Native Americans.
Born in Ganado, Ariz., Lizer is a small business owner.
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