TUCSON – Yesterday, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) visited Southern Arizona to hear from students, community leaders, and local officials and discuss federal solutions to lower the cost of living, fix the housing crisis, and expand broadband internet access.
Senator Gallego began his visit with a tour of the University of Arizona’s research facilities, where he met with university leadership to discuss the importance of protecting federal research investments.
Despite cuts to federal funding that supports scientific research, U of A continues to receive competitive grants from the National Science Foundation, underscoring the importance of the university’s research contributions to both the state and the nation.
Senator Gallego meets with leaders at the University of Arizona
He then met with members of the University of Arizona College Democrats club to listen to their concerns about the rising cost of living and the housing affordability crisis.
“What you guys are feeling right now, you’re right. It is that bad out there,” said Senator Gallego. “One of my major focuses is on bringing the cost of everything down, whether it’s groceries, or insurance, or the cost of going to school.”
Senator Gallego also spoke about how many young people are missing out on building wealth through homeownership and his bipartisan work to help more Americans buy their first home, like the Uplifting First-Time Homebuyers Act.
Senator Gallego takes questions from students at the University of Arizona
Later that day at a roundtable with Tucson elected officials and community and business leaders, Senator Gallego again emphasized that lowering costs will remain his top priority in Washington.
“How can we actually get together to lower costs?” said Senator Gallego. “Maybe we don’t have to agree on everything, but let’s figure out the areas we can agree on so we can help bring down costs [for] everyday Arizonans because that would probably be the quickest thing we can do to make people’s lives a lot better.”
At the roundtable, he also spoke on strengthening the middle class, improving access to education, expanding access to affordable health care, and creating more good-paying jobs in Southern Arizona.
Senator Gallego meets with community leaders in Tucson
Gallego’s last stop in Tucson was with Pima County supervisors, leaders, and community members to discuss how federal investments are being put to work on the ground to improve broadband access for Southern Arizona communities. The Pima County Digital Equity Program is working to expand and strengthen broadband infrastructure in the region – especially for underserved communities – but faces new threats from the Trump administration’s federal budget cuts.
Senator Gallego meets with leaders working to expand broadband access in Pima County
9/24/25