| Arizonans are struggling to put food on the table after Juan Ciscomani cast the deciding vote to gut SNAP, and he’s taken to dismissing his own constituents to avoid accountability.
According to new reporting, one Tucson mother who lost SNAP tried to talk to Ciscomani about the cuts, was “met with a ‘dismissive’ congressman, who she said did not stop to talk with her but rather ‘dodged’ the questions and spoke over her.”
Ciscomani’s SNAP cuts have kicked nearly 500,000 Arizonans off of food assistance, the highest rate in the country. Nearly 200,000 of those who have lost SNAP are children.
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Juan Ciscomani works for his D.C. party bosses, not for Arizonans. While families struggle to put food on the table, Ciscomani is dodging face-to-face meetings with his constituents and running away from those demanding answers. Arizonans deserve a representative with a spine who will actually take the time to listen, not a GOP lapdog like Ciscomani.
Read more for yourself:
The Copper Courier: A Tucson mom lost SNAP for 2 months. She confronted Rep. Ciscomani
- Angelica Garcia spent two months looking into a nearly empty fridge while the state kept her off food assistance.
- Her congressman, US Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Tucson), had voted a year earlier for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the law that rewrote who qualifies. It also cut SNAP food assistance and Medicaid by more than $1 trillion over the next decade.
- In a video… Garcia has a brief interaction with Ciscomani on his ‘yes’ vote before the GOP representative ran off.
- “It’s harming people like me,” Garcia said face-to-face with Ciscomani. In a brief reply before closing the elevator doors, Ciscomani said, “No, what it did is–”
- For Garcia, the moment was about looking eye to eye with her representative and speaking up about her experience. But she said she was instead met with a “dismissive” congressman, who she said did not stop to talk with her but rather “dodged” the questions and spoke over her.
- “I was pretty upset after the interaction, just by the way he responded and the way he was dismissive,” Garcia said. “That just goes to show that he’s not for the people. He’s out of touch. He doesn’t realize, or maybe he does realize, how it’s affecting thousands and thousands of people.”
- Prior to the bill’s passage, he signed onto letters to Republican leadership, stating he “cannot and will not vote for legislation that reduces Medicaid,” before voting for the bill just a few weeks later.
- Ever since the law passed in July 2025, Arizona has been hit the hardest in the nation, with more than 400,000 Arizonans losing access to SNAP food assistance, including 180,000 children, roughly 47% of Arizona’s caseload, according to DES.
- At the time of the bill’s passage, Ciscomani downplayed concerns about the cuts, arguing the changes will strengthen social programs like Medicaid by targeting fraud and “protect it for the people that need it the most.”
- While cutting SNAP and Medicaid, the law, backed by all Arizona Republicans, also gave massive tax breaks to the wealthy, a stark contrast to Garcia, who struggled to feed her children under the same law that gave relief to the wealthiest Americans.
- The law has hit Ciscomani’s district in particular. An analysis by the Arizona Mirror found that Southern Arizona hospitals are at risk of losing $110 million a year from Medicaid cuts, and one Tucson hospital has already closed its doors. In Pima County, too, 77,000 SNAP recipients have been thrown off the program and food banks are struggling to fill the gaps. The bill also cut Biden-era tax credits, laying off hundreds of Casa Grande workers at Lucid Motors.
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