SIERRA VISTA — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords recently rated herself in an annual performance review.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is now in her second year in Congress. (Herald/Review file photo)

Perhaps her greatest strength, she feels, is her ability to facilitate solutions for her constituents.

“I like people, and I want to solve problems,” Arizona’s 8th Congressional District representative told the Herald/Review on Monday. “If you’re interested in negative campaigning, this is the wrong job for you.”

The 37-year-old Giffords has taken on three House committee assignments; introduced 16 bipartisan bills and amendments, seven of which have been signed into law; made 43 floor speeches, 18 of those on immigration; made 32 trips home to Arizona, including 15 visits to Cochise and Santa Cruz counties; attended hundreds meetings; and, with the help of staff, engaged nearly 100,000 constituent contacts received by e-mail, phone, fax and mail.

She has waded into the people at local grocery stores 10 times as part of her “Congress on Your Corner” program. She feels this is a main duty — accessibility — that being a U.S. representative is not just a job title but a job description.

During 2007, many individuals sought help from their congresswoman. Most of those cases — 20 percent — concerned passports. The rest dealt with things such as veterans’ affairs, citizenship and immigration issues, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the FBI. Giffords’ staff opened a total of 1,980 cases and closed 79 percent of those with favorable results 94 percent of the time for the constituent, she said.

In spite of her best efforts, Giffords does not have a solid lock on the 8th District, which until a year ago was represented for many years by the Republican Jim Kolbe, who was not ousted but rather stepped down from the office.

Giffords’ congressional district contains a formidable reserve of right-leaning, conservative political voters.

“She’s a left-wing liberal,” Dick Haines, treasurer of the Cochise County Republican Committee, said Friday. “She’s our version of Nancy Pelosi (the speaker of the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives), and we need someone who’s more conservative, especially since Southeast Arizona is a conservative area.”

Immigration could be the most contentious point of debate between Giffords and Arizona Senate President Tim Bee, who on Saturday announced his bid for Congress.

Assuming they both win their primary elections in September, the two will square off in November.

Giffords is a co-sponsor of the pending STRIVE bill (H.R. 1645), which was introduced in the U.S. House last March. That acronym stands for Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy. The bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and is cosponsored by 65 Democrats and nine Republicans, including Jeff Flake of Arizona’s 6th District.

STRIVE is similar to efforts in the U.S. Senate, supported by President Bush, that died last summer for lack of compromise. While Giffords noted that the president did not muster the support he needed for the bill, she also said, “The Democratic leadership is also at fault.”

Since immigration legislation has stalled, STRIVE has been “beefed up,” she said, by pledging more resources to secure the U.S.-Mexico border with more Border Patrol agents and more fencing. But, as always, the sticking point remains the fact that STRIVE would also facilitate a path to legal citizenship for many Mexican visitors who have made their home in the United States. Staunch anti-illegal-immigration proponents are demanding mass deportations, but that idea also does not seem to be gaining traction among the pragmatists who are reaching across the aisle.

Despite the failure of comprehensive immigration reform in Congress, Giffords expressed appreciation for Arizona’s pro-immmigration-reform Republican U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl for trying to get something done despite receiving a lot of flak. Regarding McCain’s recent presidential primary victory in New Hampshire, she commented, “I was very pleased to see him win his primary.”

Meanwhile, Giffords has other issues she is focusing on — such as solar energy.

She has sponsored legislation, which passed into law, that provides for the creation of a Solar Energy Industries Research and Promotion Board and a Solar Energy Research and Promotion Operating Committee.

Solar power also seems a good way to address global warming issue, Giffords said, crediting the 110th Congress and President Bush’s cooperation in enacting the U.S. Energy Storage Competitiveness Act of 2007 on Dec. 19. It is the first measure in 32 years that will mandate an increase in automobile fuel economy.

Concerning carbon emissions and other pollution, Giffords sees it on a much larger scale than just here in Southeast Arizona and the rest of the United States.

“We’re inextricably connected across the world,” she said. “How are we going to sustain life on this planet?”