| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
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We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
unidentified
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Coming up next, conversations with new members of Congress, talking about their early lives, previous careers, their families, and what drove their interest in running for office. | |
| We spoke with Representatives Eugene Vinman of Virginia, Bob Ander of Missouri, Wesley Bell of Missouri, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, and Emily Randall of Washington. | ||
| One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Democrat Eugene Vindman. | ||
| He was born in Ukraine and after a career in the U.S. military and government service, holds elective office for the first time. | ||
| He's also the brother of Alexander Vindman, who came to national attention in 2019 when he testified before Congress on President Donald Trump's relationship with Ukraine. | ||
| I decided to run because I spent 25 years in the military serving this country. | ||
| And even after I retired, I continued serving in a different capacity investigating war crimes in Ukraine. | ||
| And after our fantastic representative, Abigail Spanberger retired, there was an opportunity to continue to serve during a time period where I thought the election coming up was critical. | ||
| I decided to throw my hat in the ring and things worked out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, like your brother, Alexander, who made so much news in recent years, you were born in Ukraine. | |
| Tell us the story of how you all came to America. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So, Alex and I are identical twins. | ||
| We have an older brother. | ||
| The five of us, my dad, my two brothers, and my grandma, came to the United States in 1979 with less than $800 between us. | ||
| We didn't speak a lick of English, and we moved into, we were actually former Soviet refugees from Soviet Ukraine. | ||
| We moved to New York City, an ethnic neighborhood in Brighton Beach, and grew up there. | ||
| Really working-class family. | ||
| My dad, for the first eight months, didn't speak any English. | ||
| He hauled furniture for $20 a day. | ||
| And he still has this little notebook where he learned 10 English words a day until he learned enough to pass a technical civil engineering exam and began to work for the city of New York. | ||
| We grew up, went to public schools, went to public university, and the first chance we got, all three of us served in the military to return the favor in gratitude this country. | ||
| We all served in uniform. | ||
|
unidentified
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What did all those experiences teach you? | |
| Hard work, the value of patriotism and love of country. | ||
| I worked with people from all walks of life. | ||
| It didn't matter whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent, black, white, Hispanic. | ||
| We all served. | ||
| We all put on the cloth of this nation because we love this country. | ||
| And frankly, some of the most patriotic people that I worked with were immigrants that had the opportunity to come here, whether as refugees or as immigrants. | ||
| And it was a wonderful experience. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's talk about 2019. | |
| The name Vinman, of course, is often connected with that phone call between President Trump and Ukraine's President Zelensky. | ||
| What was your particular role in that story? | ||
| Where were you at the time? | ||
| What happened? | ||
| And then connect the story to your brother and what happened after. | ||
| Sure, so I was a deputy legal advisor. | ||
| I was a lieutenant colonel assigned to the White House on a detail. | ||
| Deputy Legal Advisor on National Security Council staff. | ||
| The chief ethics official on the National Security Council staff. | ||
| And so I worked right across the hall from my twin brother. | ||
| And he had the portfolio of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova. | ||
| He listened to the phone call. | ||
| He heard the president's attempt at extortion and he reported it directly to me. | ||
| We talked about it briefly and we knew we had a duty to report that call. | ||
| We reported it up the chain and the rest is history. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What did that episode teach you and especially teach you about Washington? | |
| I think there are some lessons still to be learned. | ||
| But, you know, for us, that phone call, the report of that phone call was performing our duty. | ||
| Had we not reported the phone call, I think we would have been derelict in our duty. | ||
| What it taught me is that there is no place in Washington that even if it's national security that politics has not come into play. | ||
| And so that's what I learned from that episode. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That long experience in the Army and at the Trump White House for a time, how did all of that prepare you for this particular new role? | |
| Well, the experience in the Army actually was the best preparation probably because every two, three years you have a new assignment and so you're thrown into a pot where you may not have done the job ever before. | ||
| I had the privilege of being a prosecutor as a JAG officer, deploying to Iraq, advising commanders in the field on national security, law of war issues, working at the White House, on the National Security Council. | ||
| So being resilient, adaptable, doing your homework, putting in the hard work to understand an issue, and struggling through what the right answer is. | ||
| I think all of those experiences prepared me. | ||
| Leading troops, stepping out and leading, all those were great experiences. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Politically speaking, were you always a Democrat and what does that affiliation mean to you? | |
| Look, I came from a working class family. | ||
| My dad was in a union. | ||
| Those union benefits were critical to making sure that our family, our immigrant family, three boys, our stepmom joined and we actually had a stepbrother as well. | ||
| So there are four of us that we had the benefits we needed in order to survive the cut scrapes and broken bones that we had. | ||
| And so that opportunity that we had to enter the middle class is the type of opportunity I want to provide to my family and every American family and every family in Virginia's 7th Congressional District. | ||
| And so I would say I have a certain set of values that our group grew up with. | ||
| And I talked about education and integrity and hard work. | ||
| But for my time in the military, politics was not a huge factor. | ||
| We're apolitical. | ||
| I worked for Democratic and Republican administrations. | ||
| And I care deeply about this country, about our national security, and that's what I'm focused on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tell us about your family now and what they think of this new job. | |
| So I've got a 14-year-old daughter, and she told me that I should not have like skibbody-ras. | ||
| And if you have teenagers, they can tell you what that is, that I should be more of a sigma. | ||
| This is some of the slang that kids use these days. | ||
| So she's a middle schooler. | ||
| I'm very proud of her. | ||
| She's fantastic. | ||
| I've got a 20-year-old son, also, who's in his third year at William and Mary, and he's doing great. | ||
| I've married my wife for 26 years. | ||
| He's been with me every step of the way. | ||
| We're college sweethearts. | ||
| And after decades of moving around, we've made Northern Virginia and Northern Central Virginia our home. | ||
| Our kids have gone to school there. | ||
| And we love the region. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you like to do in your spare time? | |
| I love to spend time with the family. | ||
| And so right now it would be maybe skiing, but hiking and binge-watching TV shows, but things like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Republican Bob Onder of Missouri is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | |
| He has a varied background as a doctor who also holds a law degree, a legislator in his home state, and as a licensed pilot. | ||
| He talks here about why he ran for a seat in Congress. | ||
| This country has been so good to me and to my family. | ||
| I wanted my kids and my grandkids to have the same opportunities I did. | ||
| And I really saw our country threatened by a lot of different issues. | ||
| The invasion of our southern border, rising crime, the economic catastrophes of the last four years, rampant wokeness, poor energy policy. | ||
| And I really thought I needed to step forward and do something about it. | ||
| What's it like being here so far? | ||
| Well, it's exciting. | ||
| It's really an honor and a privilege to be sent by the people of my district to represent them in Washington. | ||
| Yesterday was a really exciting day certifying the election of Donald Trump as the 47th president. | ||
| So we're excited to get to work. | ||
| Today we passed the Lake and Riley bill to push back and protect Americans against criminal, illegal aliens. | ||
| But I'm just very excited to be getting to work. | ||
| Let's learn more about you. | ||
| Where did you grow up and what kind of experiences do you best remember? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I grew up in South St. Louis County. | ||
| I'm a lifelong Missourian. | ||
| My family goes back several generations in Missouri. | ||
| My father was an accountant. | ||
| My mom ran our tax and bookkeeping service. | ||
| I had one brother and one sister. | ||
| And I grew up in South St. Louis City and then South St. Louis County. | ||
| And we were very close-knit family. | ||
| My parents worked extremely hard and set a great example, valued education, stayed together. | ||
| They've been married over 60 years. | ||
| And it really was a close community in South St. Louis County back then. | ||
| You could leave your doors open. | ||
| The kids played in the church parking lot after school. | ||
| And really we benefited from that American dream of solid families, home ownership, parents who worked hard, valued education, stayed together. | ||
| You know, something that too often is missing from society nowadays. | ||
| When did you first become politically aware? | ||
| You know, I became politically aware a long time ago. | ||
| I'm dating myself now in junior high during Watergate. | ||
| I watched the Watergate hearings and not sure I really understood exactly what was going on. | ||
| But I started to volunteer in political campaigns and ballot initiatives, but really became much more politically aware, much more politically active in college. | ||
| My first presidential election I was very involved in was Ronald Reagan's. | ||
| Now you have a law degree and a medical degree. | ||
| What kind of medicine do you practice? | ||
| So I'm an internist and allergy asthma specialist. | ||
| You still practice? | ||
| You know, kind of a forced retirement because of congressional ethics rules. | ||
| But yeah, I still keep in touch with the folks back home. | ||
| Tell us where all that ambition comes from. | ||
| You know, I think just from the good example of my parents. | ||
| My parents always worked two or three jobs. | ||
| You know, my sister also got a medical degree. | ||
| My brother's a lawyer. | ||
| And I just think that, I don't know if you call it ambition, just restless, had time on my hands, so I went to law school. | ||
| Being interested in politics, public policy, and the law, not 100% sure what I was going to do with it. | ||
| I decided to stay with medicine, but now I practice law by writing laws. | ||
| You've also spent time in the Missouri House and Senate. | ||
| How do you think those experiences there translate into a career in Congress? | ||
| Yeah, I think those experiences translate really well. | ||
| I spent two years in the House, eight years in the Missouri Senate. | ||
| And I'll tell you, some of the issues we tackled back there are very much alive today. | ||
| We tackled the issue of illegal immigration. | ||
| We passed the strongest state law in the country to fight illegal immigration back when I was in the Missouri House. | ||
| We worked on issues like life, the Second Amendment. | ||
| We always, because we were a state, we had a balanced budget amendment, and we always balanced our budget, lived within our means, reformed entitlements. | ||
| I think all of the skills of being a legislature, a legislator, but also the background in those issues will serve me well here in Congress. | ||
| And you now represent the 3rd District in Missouri. | ||
| Tell us about the district and the folks back home. | ||
| Yeah, the 3rd Congressional District in Missouri is a really diverse district. | ||
| It goes from suburbs of St. Louis County all the way into central Missouri, a lot of farmland, a lot of ranchers and farmers. | ||
| The flagship University, University of Missouri, Columbia Go Tigers, all the way down to the seat of government in Jefferson City, and then into the Ozarks with the Lake of the Ozarks. | ||
| So a big, diverse district, 16 counties. | ||
| I'm just really honored to represent such a great district. | ||
| Tell us about your family and what they think of all this now. | ||
| Yeah, my wife and I, Allison, have raised our kids for about 25 years in St. Charles County, Missouri. | ||
| We live on a farm there. | ||
| And we have six children, and they're excited as well. | ||
| Did I read that you own a small business? | ||
| Yes, well, I own several businesses. | ||
| The medical practice, we also do some clinical research, pharmaceutical research, and also a little bit of commercial real estate. | ||
| So I've signed, as they say, the front of a paycheck as well as the back. | ||
| I also read that you have a pilot's license. | ||
| Now, when did that happen? | ||
| How did it come about? | ||
| And what do you fly? | ||
| Yeah, so I learned in a small Cessna 150, a little two-seater. | ||
| It was lucky my instructor was a pretty small guy, otherwise we wanted to fit. | ||
| I got my license about five years ago and then got my instrument rating. | ||
| Have about 700 hours flying. | ||
| I fly a Cirrus SR-22, known as the plane with the parachute. | ||
| That was the only plane my wife would let me get. | ||
| How else do you like to spend your time when you're not working? | ||
| Yeah, I like to spend a lot of time outdoors, hunting, running, bicycling, reading, mostly though, spending time with my family. | ||
| Democrat Wesley Bell of Missouri is one of the more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | ||
| He's an attorney who became the first African American to hold the position of St. Louis County Prosecutor. | ||
| Congressman Bell talks here about his career, including his first run for elective office. | ||
| He won a seat on the Ferguson, Missouri Town Council after the protests there a decade ago. | ||
| You know, I thought I could help. | ||
| At the time, I taught at the community college in Ferguson, the Floreson Valley campus. | ||
| At the time, I was a municipal court judge. | ||
| I was a former public defender, and I thought that my expertise, my skill set could help potentially turn things around. | ||
| And so I put my hat in the ring and was very fortunate to get the opportunity to be on the negotiating team with then President Barack Obama's Department of Justice, helping create and negotiate the Ferguson consent decree, bringing body cameras to every single police officer, increasing pay for our law enforcement officers, and just being a part of the group that helped turn a very tough situation around. | ||
| What did you learn personally and professionally from that experience? | ||
| What I learned is that there's no substitute for listening and building relationships not only with your constituents, most importantly, but also with stakeholders. | ||
| The first time that I ran for city council, I had, you know, typical lawyer. | ||
| I wrote up this platform that I thought was God's gift to politics. | ||
| I got in my first town hall meeting and tore it up after about five seconds because folks started asking me, asking questions. | ||
| They start telling me what their issues were. | ||
| And I was able to create a platform that was based on the folks that I wanted to represent. | ||
| And I've never forgotten that. | ||
| And that's why that community engagement and that outreach piece is so important. | ||
| You grew up in the St. Louis area. | ||
| What was early life like for you? | ||
| What do you remember? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Football and school. | ||
| My parents were essentially one of those folks who are like, hey, you can do whatever you want within reason as long as the grades are good. | ||
| But if the grades are not good, everything gets shut down. | ||
| And growing up, the youngest of four boys, we played football in the basement when the weather was good. | ||
| We went outside and played football. | ||
| We played organized peewee sports through high school. | ||
| But also just being part of a great community and having a great support system. | ||
| So it was fortunate with the support that I've had. | ||
| Now you come to Congress having served as prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County, Missouri for several years. | ||
| What was your approach to the position and what would people remember about your work? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Our focus was on practical criminal justice reform. | ||
| We recognize that serious and violent offenders have to be held accountable. | ||
| There's no getting around that. | ||
| When you cross the line of harming folks, we're going to hold you accountable. | ||
| But there's also a large bucket of people who are struggling with substance use disorder, opioid abuse, mental health issues that haven't harmed anyone other than the disease that they're struggling with. | ||
| And for those folks, those nonviolent, low-level offenders, we expanded treatment programs by creating a diversion advisory committee, the first of its kind, where we connected our criminal justice system with our health care system. | ||
| I got a good piece of advice a long time ago. | ||
| You want to fix your public safety problem? | ||
| Fix your health care problem. | ||
| Because so many folks that come through the criminal justice system are struggling with medical or diseases, substance use, as I said before, mental health, and we got to address those root causes. | ||
| You were the first African American to serve in that position as prosecuting attorney. | ||
| What did that distinction mean to you and to others? | ||
| You know, it is not lost on me being the first of anything. | ||
| And obviously I recognize the responsibility of that. | ||
| You want to set an example for those who look like me, who may want to come along and do this, you know, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, or however long. | ||
| But also we want to do the work. | ||
| We want to keep our region safe. | ||
| I don't care what letters in front of your name, as Democrats as well as Republicans, everyone cares about the safety of their family and their loved ones. | ||
| And so that job I take very seriously. | ||
| I took very seriously and I'll continue to support our local prosecutors as well as DAs and law enforcement to make certain that they have all the tools they need. | ||
| But some of those tools are about treatment in addition to addressing incarcerating serious and violent offenders. | ||
| Do you remember the moment you decided you wanted to run for this seat and what drives you? | ||
| You know, for me, it was a culmination of events. | ||
| My time in Ferguson opened my eyes to the need not only in Ferguson but across St. Louis County and across the state and country for practical criminal justice reform. | ||
| And as a former professor, teaching our young people and recognizing that a lot of folks, they want, a lot of young people are looking for opportunities and we want to make certain that we grow this economy so that they have opportunities, hopefully in my district. | ||
| But also as a former judge, you know, I saw folks at their lowest in many cases. | ||
| And what I've seen consistently is whether someone agrees or disagrees, what's more important to them is to be treated fairly. | ||
| And so I bring all those experiences to my role in the House of Representatives. | ||
| It's an honor and a pleasure to serve and I'm looking forward to it. | ||
| How would you describe yourself politically? | ||
| I would consider myself a common sense public servant, focused, laser focused on getting things done for my constituents. | ||
| And that means I'm going to work with anyone who has the interest of the St. Louis region and this country in mind. | ||
| And so I look forward to working with my fellow Democrats. | ||
| And when possible, we're going to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans because I think we agree on a lot more than we disagree. | ||
| And I think it's time that we focused on those things. | ||
| And finally, back to your family and those brothers of yours. | ||
| What does everyone back home think about all this? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| It occurred to me on swearing in, about 50 to 60 people came in town. | ||
| I think they're more excited than I was, than I am, actually. | ||
| And so it's just humbling and also exciting to know that I can serve the folks back at home and what they're going to get from me as someone who's going to put the St. Louis region first. | ||
| We're going to focus on getting things done, creating good jobs, and lowering the costs of food and drug costs, but every day waking up and thinking about what can I do for our region. | ||
| Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | ||
| The Republican owns a real estate development company, and his leadership experience in his family's electrical business dates back to his teenage years. | ||
| It's his first time in elective office. | ||
| Well, I have absolutely no political experience whatsoever. | ||
| Nobody in my family so much has ever ran for dog catchers. | ||
| So I am certainly the first one to come through the political environment, to say the least. | ||
| But our family business is and was traffic signals, heavy highway electrical contracting. | ||
| My grandfather started the company in 1973 with a station wagon and a ladder tied to the roof. | ||
| And he was an IBW electrician and grew the company. | ||
| And in 2008, we got totally clobbered by the financial downturn. | ||
| And with banks and surety and bonding partners looking for a succession plan, I was going to go to school in Philadelphia for construction management at Drexel University. | ||
| But my grandparents said, hey, we will sell you the company after you get a four-year college degree from a university of my acceptance. | ||
| University Scranton checks that box. | ||
| And I always knew I'd be back into the family business. | ||
| I just didn't think it would be at the age of 19 as CFO. | ||
| But to whom much is given, much is required. | ||
| And it's certainly something that I took very seriously. | ||
| And the company grew 400% over a period of 12 years. | ||
| We went from 50 employees to 165, worked in, I think it's 19 different states now. | ||
| And now I'm just so incredibly excited to represent my home, my family's home in Washington, D.C. Right, so now you turn to politics. | ||
| Where did the political bug come from? | ||
| I always tried to help the right people that would run for the right reasons, people that didn't have an ulterior motive, that truly wanted to make Northeastern Pennsylvania and represent my home and my values. | ||
| So I've been watching the political landscape and actually came to Washington, D.C. for a legislative fly-in in 2017 with National Electrical Contractors Association. | ||
| And we had done some lobbying on the Hill. | ||
| We were talking about 529s and how imperative it is to create the next generation of worker. | ||
| And I met with a member and I just felt like he wasn't very interested in what we were talking about. | ||
| I remember thinking, well, I can do that job, never thinking I would actually end up doing it. | ||
| And, you know, I had a very successful company. | ||
| I had a girlfriend at the time that tolerated me. | ||
| And throwing myself into a political gauntlet wasn't something that I was looking at doing, especially at this point in my life. | ||
| But like it goes back to the first statement, to whom much is given, much is required. | ||
| And that's ultimately why I decided to do this. | ||
| And I wanted to give back to Northeastern Pennsylvania. | ||
| Put the two concepts together. | ||
| What is it about having run a business that lends itself to being a lawmaker here in Washington? | ||
| We're actually a union electrical contractor. | ||
| Come from the IBW background, operating engineer background. | ||
| A big reason why we were able to grow so quickly over a short period of time was because of our relationships with our trade partners. | ||
| But I'm always considered myself a pragmatic, common sense, solution-oriented person. | ||
| You know, I'm not from a, like I said, a lineage of legislators, but I've always looked at situations individually and tried to make the best decision every single day for the company. | ||
| I've always had an entrepreneurial mindset, but I think it comes down to just really being approachable, being accessible, and really listening to people because ultimately, you know, when you're running a company or if you're helping your congressional district, you're thinking about what's best for your employees, or you're thinking about what's best for your district, or you're thinking about what's best for the company. | ||
| And I think being just pragmatic and common sense is a fundamental principle that you need to be able to be here. | ||
| I was going to ask you, how would you describe yourself politically? | ||
| I'm a fiscal conservative, socially more moderate, but I'm pragmatic. | ||
| I look at situations and issues individually. | ||
| I've never been a believer in a one-size-fits-all. | ||
| I'm a common sense conservative, if that makes any sense, because I've always considered myself to be a rational, independent, and thinker. | ||
| So I don't know where I fall in that landscape on the climate or the temperature, but I'm a regular person that came through and was born in my district, raised in my district. | ||
| I went to school in my district. | ||
| I created jobs in my district. | ||
| I reinvested into my district, and I know I'm going to die and get buried in my district. | ||
| So I think my job and my voting card is owned by only the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania. | ||
| What do you like to do in your spare time? | ||
| I ran two marathons. | ||
| My fiancé and I took place in the New York City Marathon two years ago. | ||
| Honestly, beaches are my worst vacation because I'm not a person to just sit still and sit idle. | ||
| I used to golf once upon a time. | ||
| I think I've only played four rounds of golf in the last 15 months since we've ventured into the campaign and now obviously being down here, but I love being a part of my community. | ||
| Just over the weekend, we went to a paramedic fundraiser for one of our local emergency responders who fell ill to cancer. | ||
| But just being home, I work here, but my heart and my home is Northeastern PA. | ||
| You are 34 years old, correct? | ||
| I am. | ||
| Longer-term plans? | ||
| Oh, no, no. | ||
| I'm just so humbled and excited that a kid from Butler Street in Pennsylvania, Butler Street in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, can be representing his family's home, who we've called Northeastern Pennsylvania home for five generations. | ||
| So now I'm here to focus on the people of PA8. | ||
| Emily Randall of Washington State is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | ||
| Before her election to Congress, the Democrat served in the Washington Senate. | ||
| She talks here about her career, which also includes work as a community organizer. | ||
| I work mostly in nonprofit health care and education organizations, building community support for expanding healthcare access for kids, for women, for LGBTQ folks. | ||
| I worked at Children's Hospital Boston, at My Alma Mater Wellesley College. | ||
| I worked for Planned Parenthood and San Francisco AIDS Foundation and ran for office in 2018. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You were born in the Seattle area? | |
| In Bremerton, in the 6th congressional district. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow, what was it like growing up there? | |
| Who were your key influences growing up? | ||
| Yeah, so I grew up in the house my mom grew up in and really close to my dad's parents. | ||
| I'm the first in my family to go to college, so my role models were, you know, my family that worked in the trades. | ||
| They were my educators, they were my faith leaders, they were my neighbors. | ||
| My grandma was a hospital housekeeper at the hospital where I was born, and she also sort of moonlighted as a translator because at that time interpreter services weren't insured to patients. | ||
| And so she spoke Spanish and would pop into people's rooms to make sure that they knew what they needed to know from the doctor. | ||
| And, you know, that sort of ethos of taking care of your neighbors no matter what is what inspired me to go into public service. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you hear politics being discussed growing up? | |
| Some. | ||
| My dad was a Republican, my mom's a Democrat, so we had sort of vibrant kitchen table conversations as a kid. | ||
| But, you know, I didn't really know my elected leaders. | ||
| I didn't really think that I was going to run for office someday. | ||
| I knew that I wanted to give back to community though. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Were you always a Democrat? | |
| No. | ||
| So I had a sister who was born with really complex disabilities when I was seven. | ||
| And we were a religious family. | ||
| My mom jokes now that her third pregnancy was the only one she planned. | ||
| And when we found out that Olivia halfway through the pregnancy had really, you know, that would be born with severe disabilities. | ||
| The other twin died halfway through the pregnancy. | ||
| My mom's doctor encouraged her to have an abortion. | ||
| And it wasn't the right choice for her. | ||
| And it made me, as a young person, I was, you know, didn't identify as pro-choice. | ||
| I felt like my sister's life was just as important as anyone's life. | ||
| But as I got older and I met peers who became pregnant, you know, unexpectedly, unplanned, you know, knew more stories about the things that folks were faced with, the challenges, I realized that what bothered me as a young person was that someone was trying to impress their idea on my mom about what was the right path. | ||
| And for her, it was to remain pregnant and to have my sister. | ||
| And so now, you know, I've worked at Planned Parenthood and I've worked on really strong abortion protections in the state of Washington. | ||
| And that was a journey for me to understand the challenges women face in the world. | ||
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I want to ask you about your experience in the state Senate. | |
| Was there a moment, though, specific moment that you remember where you said, I'm going to run for office? | ||
| Oh, the first time? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I was at my college campus at Wellesley College after doing some GO TV in Nashua, New Hampshire with Planned Parenthood Action Fund. | ||
| And we were watching, waiting for the election results 2016. | ||
| And it was like 1.30 in the morning East Coast time. | ||
| And I knew that the candidate I had fought for had lost and knew that the Trump administration was going to come for Medicaid. | ||
| They were going to come for the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| They were going to come for LGBTQ rights and the Pell Grant and education support that had made the difference for me and the people that I care about. | ||
| And I knew that I had to do more. | ||
| And that night is when I decided to run for the state Senate in my home community. | ||
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unidentified
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How many years did you serve in the state Senate? | |
| Six years. | ||
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unidentified
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What are your major accomplishments, do you think? | |
| Yeah, I worked a lot on health care access, on abortion protections, on Medicaid expansion for postpartum parents and for immigrants. | ||
| I also worked a lot on education and opportunity. | ||
| As a first generation college grad, I chaired the higher ed committee and worked on expanding access to career and technical college, to affordable four-year degrees. | ||
| And then spent a lot of time also working on transportation and infrastructure, which was new for me. | ||
| I took a bus sometimes and I drove my car, but I wasn't an expert in transportation and then got the chance to negotiate Washington's greenest transportation package that invests in ferries and roads and bridges and all sorts of things. | ||
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You started making news back home by being one of the two openly LGBTQ women in the state Senate. | |
| How, broadly speaking, how does that identification inform you as a public servant? | ||
| Well, you know, the fact that I was one of the first two women, Claire Wilson and I were elected the same year, you know, I think is a testament to the fact that there were some gaps in knowledge among the caucus before we joined. | ||
| You know, folks had had a lot of different experiences in the caucus, but they hadn't, you know, grown up as a queer woman in Washington State. | ||
| And, you know, it matters that we bring our voices and our neighbors' voices with us into the halls of power because, you know, we get to shape legislation, whether through amendment or just educating our colleagues about the way we talk about community that makes folks in community feel more seen and heard and respected. | ||
| You know, we've passed a lot of LGBTQ protections in the legislature in Washington during the first Trump administration in advance of this one. | ||
| And now I'm bringing those neighbors' voices with me, those experiences, to keep fighting for all of our communities. | ||
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When you ran for the House seat that you now occupy, you did receive a number of high-profile endorsements in Washington. | |
| What was it like campaigning for the House? | ||
| Yeah, was a different adventure, I gotta say. | ||
| I had run two of the toughest legislative races in the state for my first Senate race and then the re-election. | ||
| So I thought I knew what tough campaigning was like. | ||
| But, you know, the congressional district is much bigger. | ||
| Running in a Democratic primary was new for me. | ||
| But, you know, what I did is went out and talked to my neighbors the same way I had before. | ||
| Showed up at their front doors and asked them what they were concerned about, what they hoped for, and tried to bring those stories along with me. | ||
| I think that's part of why, you know, Senator Patty Murray endorsed me because she saw me doing the work and she knew that I'd be a good colleague to fight for our neighbors together. | ||
| And that's what I'm here to do, to make sure folks feel like they've got real representation. | ||
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unidentified
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I always like to ask our cross-country folks how often they plan to get home and back to the district. | |
| What are you thinking? | ||
| Most weekends, yeah. | ||
| You know, it is a big geographic district, so I can't just, you know, go home one weekend a month and be in every corner of it. | ||
| So, you know, and I also have a family that I want to spend time with. | ||
| I have a baby nephew who's almost one, my wife, my brother and sister-in-law, my mom. | ||
| So I'll take those cross-country commutes with my little dog and get rack up the airline miles and come back here and get to work. | ||
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What do you see as the toughest part of navigating Washington, D.C. as a newcomer here? | |
| Yeah, well, this is my first time in a minority. | ||
| I, you know, have always served in a Democratic trifecta my time in the state Senate. | ||
| But even when I was a member of the governing majority, I knew that bipartisan relationships made my policy better. | ||
| And so I'm going to draw on those experiences to try and build relationships with folks from all corners of the country, both sides of the aisle, to make sure that the policy that we pass reflects the needs of all Americans. | ||
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All this week, watch C-SPAN's new Members of Congress series, where we speak with both Republicans and Democrats about their early lives, previous careers, families, and why they decided to run for office. | |
| Tonight, at 9.30 p.m. Eastern, our interviews include Texas Republican Congressman Brandon Gill, who grew up on a cattle ranch, worked as an investment banker, and founded the DC Inquirer. | ||
| I grew up on a thousand-acre cattle ranch in West Texas outside of Abilene. | ||
| We raised Angus and Braangus beef cows. | ||
| So been ever since I can remember, working cows, building fences, driving tractors and backhoes, doing everything you would expect to do on a thousand-acre cattle ranch. | ||
|
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Watch new members of Congress all this week, starting at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | |
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| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information. | ||
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