How I Left the Republican Party

An aspiring Senator reflects on the hard journey that brought her to public service

It was in the early hours of December 12, 2002, that I was alone in a hospital bed with my newborn daughter. I clutched her little sweet-smelling form close, and felt the weight of the responsibility I now had. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” I whispered to her with moist eyes, “but I promise I’m going to give you a good life.”

Like most of the people in the Eastern Washington community where I grew up, I had a fierce independent streak. I was the kind of person who insisted on learning how to change a tire the second I had my own car so I would never be stuck helpless in a situation that demanded this very skill.

After my first summer out of high school while working for the park service in the remote reaches of Priest Lake, Idaho, I was lost and had become too accustomed to drinking in excess. Upon returning home to Spokane, someone noticed the addictions I was struggling with and invited me to go to church with him. I had grown up in both the Episcopalian and Lutheran churches, but religion wasn’t much a part of my lifestyle or identity outside of an occasional activity I did with my mom.