Citizen Staff Writer
Former Tucsonan Mary Kim Titla, 46, is hoping to become the first American Indian to represent Arizona in Congress.
She has announced she’ll seek the seat of embattled U.S. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., whose mostly rural district extends into southern Arizona.
Titla, a Democrat, is a former reporter for KVOA Channel 4.
Renzi has said he won’t resign before he faces re-election in 2008, despite investigations into his real estate dealings.
Titla grew up in poverty on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. She left broadcast journalism in 2005 to start Native Youth Magazine, an online publication.
Titla doesn’t have a lock on the Democratic Party’s nomination, but her broadcasting career has boosted her visibility to voters.
Former sportscaster J.D. Hayworth parlayed his screen presence into a seat representing much of the same area from 1994 to 2002, when redistricting eliminated most of his district’s rural areas. Those areas then became the bulk of Renzi’s Congressional District 1.
BLAKE MORLOCK
bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com