WASHINGTON — Rep. Barbara Lee has at all times stood out, a no-nonsense renegade with an extended listing of firsts.
In highschool, she was the primary black pupil to combine her Southern California cheerleading workforce.
During the Democrat’s greater than twenty years in Congress, she was the one Black lady elected to the House from areas of California north of Los Angeles.
But it was Lee’s lone vote in 2001, as the one lawmaker towards authorizing using army pressure towards these answerable for the September 11 assaults, that indelibly set her aside.
“If you actually consider that that is the appropriate factor for the nation, on your district, for the world, then it’s a must to do it, and to hell with every part else,” Lee instructed The Associated Press throughout a current breakfast interview on the Capitol . .
“You do not do it on a regular basis, however there are some instances when it’s a must to.”
As Lee heads for the exit, concluding a storied profession representing the Oakland space, the 78-year-old congresswoman, as soon as seen as an outlier with deeply unpopular positions — her anti-war vote led to demise threats — noticed his views take form. be revered, accepted and even emulated. Casting her ultimate vote on the House ground in late December, Lee was greeted with applause, her legacy a touchstone for a brand new era.
Yet his experiences — together with shedding a Senate major in March for a seat later received by a then-House colleague, Democrat Adam Schiff, in the identical 12 months that voters nationwide rejected Vice President Kamala Harris for president-elect Donald Trump – additionally present a stark reminder of the challenges black girls face in American electoral politics.
“There are few congressional leaders and public officers who’ve served with the identical braveness and tenacity as Congresswoman Lee,” mentioned outgoing Sen. Laphonza Butler, the California Democrat briefly appointed to the seat after the longtime Democrat’s demise. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
With Butler, Lee joined collectively to cross one of many ultimate payments of the 118th Congress, awarding the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to his mentor and good friend Shirley Chisholm, one other pioneer – the primary black lady elected to Congress, who entered 1969, who went on to make a long-shot presidential run – on what would have been the New York Democrat’s one hundredth birthday. It was handed by the House and Senate with out opposition and signed into regulation by Democratic President Joe Biden in December.
A single mother and social employee by coaching, Lee had been disconnected from politics. She was a volunteer group employee with the Black Panther Party when she met Chisholm. Lee present in “Mrs. There is a brand new kind of chief who “defends the individuals”. Lee turned concerned in Chisholm’s 1972 presidential marketing campaign. Lee ultimately labored in Congress and ran for workplace herself, taking the seat after her boss, Representative Ron Dellums, retired.
But as Lee tells it, what’s particularly noteworthy about her profession is that she’s No. 20, the twentieth Black lady elected to the House.
“I’m solely the 20 th!” he mentioned.
“Can you think about? I imply, it is fairly scary. Black girls haven’t had their voices, their views and their experiences mirrored in insurance policies.”
Over and over once more, she says she was among the many solely black girls on the desk, significantly when she and others pushed Republican President George W. Bush to launch the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to battle world HIV/AIDS. It’s an effort that continues immediately.
Likewise, she was an early critic of the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion providers with few exceptions in instances of rape, incest or if the being pregnant endangers the pregnant particular person’s life. Lee sees it as discriminatory towards low-income girls who depend on federal well being care. His was a as soon as uncommon place that has since gained wider assist.
“I’ve been on the tables all these years alone, which suggests I’ve needed to kind allies and alliances to be efficient,” she mentioned, “which I’ve achieved.”
She explains that as a Black lady, she brings a perspective that’s usually misplaced by others, strolling by life with “antennas” that sense what’s taking place “due to our historical past.”
Lee’s antennas have been positively selecting up indicators on the eve of January 6, 2021, amid chatter of far-right teams arriving in Washington.
“I wore tennis footwear to work that day,” he mentioned.
When the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and he or she and different lawmakers have been attempting to don gasoline masks and evacuate the House chamber, she remembers how the House chaplain stood up and commenced praying.
“I mentioned, ‘Oh, Lord. This is severe. We too should begin praying,” he mentioned. Those sneakers “got here in useful.”
But it was his vote twenty years earlier, within the days after the assaults of September 11, 2001, that outlined Lee’s legacy in Congress.
She anguished over the selection and mentioned she was as shocked as anybody that she was the one vote towards the decision that approved what she had warned about: America’s lengthy struggle in Afghanistan and past.
The response was fierce and threatening, but in addition affirmative of his perception. Other Democratic lawmakers have switched to his facet and he has since constructed a coalition, together with with far-right Republicans against army motion overseas.
“She has at all times dreamed huge, she has at all times been daring, she has at all times had a power of conviction — and he or she may be very strategic,” mentioned Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., a part of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers first elected time in 2018. “She’s passionate, however not reactive, she’s thoughtfully reactive.”
Younger lawmakers usually name Lee “OG”
Lee notes that there are actually a number of dozen Black girls elected to the House — an enchancment however, she mentioned, nonetheless not sufficient to make amends for the nation’s greater than 200 years of historical past.
She works with the group Representation Matters to assist girls of coloration operating for workplace, and did so this previous election cycle. He supported Democrats Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who went on to make historical past as two Black girls who joined the Senate.
“I must make it possible for different black girls do not must undergo what I went by,” she mentioned.
Lee’s subsequent chapter is to be decided. He spent the ultimate days of the congressional session eliminating priorities and discovering the following era of leaders to hold out his unfinished enterprise, together with repealing the Hyde Amendment and authorizing using army pressure.
“My mom instructed me that ‘cannot’ is just not within the dictionary,” she mentioned. “Shirley Chisholm inspired me to shake issues up, to not go alongside to get alongside.”
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