Higher taxes on working people.Guys in girls’ sports.Defund the Police.
JoAnna Mendoza is the Democratic nominee for Congress in Arizona’s 6th District.
Her record is public. Here it is.
JoAnna Mendoza served as a registered lobbyist for a Dark Money Special Interest group that doesn’t disclose its donors.
Mendoza was executive director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, a nonprofit that does not publish its donors. She is now the Democratic nominee for Congress in Arizona’s 6th District, running against Rep. Juan Ciscomani.
She even tried to erase her record and scrub her social media accounts. Here is what the Arizona Republic found.
Deleted posts, preserved by the Internet Archive
In that role, Mendoza worked hard to increase taxes for working people.
The exemption never became law.
In 2023, as Governor Hobbs and a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed to exempt diapers, tampons and other hygiene products from the state sales tax, the Arizona Center for Economic Progress published its opposition, arguing an exemption should not happen “unless the revenue that is lost is replaced by revenue from something else.” Mendoza was named the Center’s executive director that year.
In May 2025, Governor Hobbs signed HB 2679 after working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Mendoza, then co-executive director of VetsForward, attacked the law the day after it was signed, calling it a “corporate bailout disguised as policy.”
Asked about the 2025 law that lets hourly workers keep their overtime pay tax-free, Mendoza dismissed the overtime tax cut as “ridiculous.”
Read the Arizona Republic report
The Arizona Republic reported in August 2026 that Mendoza claimed Arizona’s State Aid to Education property-tax credit on two homes at once — her Tucson house, which she had turned into a rental, and a second home in Red Rock.
On camera
Asked on camera about the tax credit and whether she would give the money back, Mendoza held a campaign sign in front of her face and got into her car without answering.
Watch on YouTubeSix years later, her position has not changed.
At a 2020 candidate forum, asked about a bill to keep transgender athletes off girls’ teams, Mendoza said: “I think legislation, like the one that you mentioned, it’s harmful, it’s toxic. It takes away from who we are as Americans.” In July 2026, with Proposition 318 headed to Arizona’s ballot to require school teams be designated by biological sex, her campaign reaffirmed that such rules should be left to “parents, coaches, and sports associations — not politicians.”
Her campaign now says she does not support defunding the police.
In a June 11, 2020 Clean Elections debate during her run for the Arizona Legislature, Mendoza said: “I support the reallocation of funding to programs that would allow people to live their best lives. Such as social service programs. Such as housing, public education, healthcare.” In 2026 she has raised money with groups that called to defund the police.
Twelve days later, in a written statement to Blog for Arizona, she wrote: “Police reform and reallocation of funding to public education, healthcare, and other public service programs are long overdue.”
The clip was later deleted.
At a 2020 Equality Arizona candidate forum, then-president Michael Soto asked Mendoza whether she would work to decriminalize sex work, citing discrimination against transgender people in formal employment. Mendoza answered: “It’s important to ensure that there’s access to the resources, the support networks, the social services, access to health care. Eliminating the discriminatory practices and laws so that every individual has the opportunity to be able to provide for themselves.”
Her campaign calls it “one short chapter amid her decades of service.”
Mendoza married Tariq Alrawwass in Syria on April 20, 1998, and returned to the United States alone 16 days later. Records show Alrawwass never lived in the United States, and her Navy records show no overseas deployment during her 1994–1997 enlistment. She did not file for divorce until October 2000, saying she had been unable to locate him. A judge granted a default divorce in June 2001. The marriage does not appear in her campaign biography.
She disclosed the 2012 incident herself in June 2026.
In March 2012, after a night of heavy drinking, Mendoza drove into another car in a parking lot and was charged with driving while intoxicated. She disclosed the previously unreported incident in a June 2026 interview with The New York Times, tying it to alcohol abuse following a sexual assault and saying she has been sober since.
Romero endorsed Mendoza in the CD6 race in July 2026. Ciscomani’s campaign answered with an ad calling her “Tucson’s Failed, Unpopular Mayor,” citing police staffing, homelessness and crime in the city she runs.
Do your research and vote wisely. The Real JoAnna Mendoza is wrong for Arizona.