Madam Speaker Pelosi,

Under your leadership, the people of Arizona were further marginalized this week with the attack on our duly elected representative to The People's House, Congressman Paul Gosar. Rep. Gosar may have been the target of the highly partisan attack, but we are the victims.

From the Navajo Nation to the southern borderland, Rep. Gosar has given voice to the diverse peoples of Arizona. Whether working across the aisle with Democrats on compensation for Arizona "downwinders," or calling attention to the plight of ranchers, merchants, and Border Patrol agents who are struggling under the weight of a failed immigration system, Rep. Gosar has been a messenger for the masses for whom the elite in Washington have little time or interest.

A portion of those masses have endured the terror generated by the likes of Rep. Maxine Waters, among many others, who told the public to "get in the face" of Trump staff and supporters. Masses who watched as their representative in the Senate, former Sen. Jeff Flake, raced to provide care for his colleagues who were shot by a Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter.

Arizonans are proud of our mavericks. Our elected representatives are bigger than life, merely human, and flawed. However, we stand by them regardless of party affiliation. Love them or hate them, they are the people we sent to represent us. If under Republican leadership, one of our Democratic Party representatives tweeted something someone found offensive, or claimed to find offensive, we would stand by them. Then when it comes time to vote them out, that is just what we would try to do. That is how the system is supposed to work.

Rep. Gosar might have been your target, and we the people of Arizona are most surely your victims, but it is your hypocritical assault on the First Amendment that is chilling.

Justice Kennedy made it clear to us all that government cannot broadly restrict speech when he noted that "the First Amendment is often inconvenient but inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech."

The inconvenient truth of the matter here is the fact that you have violated our rights. Rep. Gosar's cartoon may have offended, but your response - Rep. Gosar's censure and removal from committees - have assaulted the people of Arizona by denying us full representation.

We respectfully request that this letter in opposition to the censure of Congressman Paul Gosar be entered into the Congressional record.