History Made! Oscar De Los Santos Elected Arizona's First Democratic House Speaker in 60 Years

Gutierrez, Garcia, Volk and Crews Round Out Majority Leadership Team

PHOENIX – Arizona's anticipated 37-member House Democratic Caucus has elected Representative Oscar De Los Santos of Phoenix to be Speaker of the House. De Los Santos, who has led the Caucus for the past two years and co-chaired the successful campaign effort to flip control of the chamber, will be Arizona's first Democratic Speaker of the House since 1966. 

The Caucus elected Representative Nancy Gutierrez of Tucson as Majority Leader. Whips will be Representatives Brian Garcia of Tempe and Kevin Volk of Tucson. Representative Quantá Crews of Phoenix will serve as Speaker Pro Tempore.

"This is a stellar, accomplished and history-making Leadership team, and I'm honored to serve with each of them, and every member of the incoming Majority Caucus," De Los Santos said. "It took a lot of hard work to get here, but we have much more to do. Our priorities have been consistently focused on bringing down costs for housing, childcare and healthcare for working people and middle-class Arizonans. Now we have a mandate, a moral obligation and a historic opportunity to deliver an Arizona we can afford."  

Born to working-class immigrant parents from Mexico, De Los Santos was first elected to the Arizona House in 2022 at the age of 28 and has served as Democratic Leader since 2025. De Los Santos began his career in the classroom, teaching sixth-grade English and social studies in South Phoenix. He then managed public policy and legislative advocacy for the Association of Arizona Food Banks, where he worked with legislators of both parties to pass bills to help Arizonans struggling to get by. He holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School and a master's degree in public policy from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He also holds a master's degree in Christian social ethics from Union Theological Seminary. De Los Santos will proudly serve as Arizona's first openly LGBTQ+ Speaker of the House.

Majority Leader-elect Gutierrez spent more than 20 years in the classroom as a public-school teacher before she ran for office in 2022. Gutierrez has served as Whip and has been Assistant House Democratic Leader since 2025 and Ranking Member on the House Education Committee. A proud member of the Arizona Education Association, she has taught in Paradise Valley, Sierra Vista and Tucson. She lives in Tucson with her husband and has two grown daughters. Her degree in elementary education comes from Northern Arizona University.

Majority Whip-elect Garcia is an attorney and the son of immigrant parents from El Salvador and Mexico. As a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, he has been a member of the Legislature's Indigenous People's Caucus, and currently co-chairs the LGBTQIA+ Caucus. Garcia earned a bachelor's degree in global studies, a master's degree in legal studies and a law degree, all from Arizona State University. 

Majority Whip-elect Volk was born and raised in southern Arizona and is a business owner developing affordable housing. He has also been an elementary school teacher and taught English in Mexico on a Fulbright scholarship. He was first elected in 2024, flipping a former Republican seat from red to blue. His degree in economics comes from Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Speaker Pro Tem Crews was born in Detroit, Michigan, and came to Arizona in 2005 as a student to attend Grand Canyon University. She is a professional real estate appraiser and an ordained minister at the historic Tanner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Phoenix. Crews was appointed to the House in 2023 and became part of the Leadership team as Whip in 2025. She is a graduate of GCU with a degree in history and the mother of three school-age sons.