Tack to time to write down the stories i have lived in the last year and a half. What inspired you to write this book. Guest my editor of the bork called me right after the election and said, my gosh, we have this Record Number of women in congress, and such an interesting mix of women in congress so many firsts for so many different districts and for congress, period. Dont you think that would be great book . You have covered congress over the years. Id love you to do it. You have six months or something. So killer deadline. I thought that would be great. All new people, and i had had the experience of covering when we republicans took over and the Tea Party Wave and what that was like to we have a whole new breed in town. I thought theyre book ends. Host thats an interesting contrast. From your book you tell a lot of stories, many of them personal to me. What ones stand out as the most remarkable stories that you if you had coffee with somebody you would want to share with them about our class or this year. Guest a couple of things. I always loved sit neglect gallery and watching you interact, who sits with whom and who hangs out and i did find the group of National Security women as theyre often referred to, so close and tightknit and watching you have this bonding experience, and the men as well but watching that was interesting to me. I think another just kind of legislative memory that sticks out for all kinds of reasons what the voice on the background check bill, the lucy mcbath bill. Just that she had run on the issue having had such a painful horrific experience of losing her child to gun violence, that then drove her into the political arena, and so many permanent stories that drove women into politics, which was the theme of the election. A bill that obviously had not gotten any traction in congress in the last decade, to see it pass, then to see the contrast of the moderates and the progressives fighting over the amendments to that, and that was unfolding right in front of us and thats chronicled, that moment in the book, and i followed congresswoman mcbath from her hearing to the floor as she was getting ready to vote on that bill. That would stick out as an intersection of the personal and political some something that demonstrated in so many words what this congress has been about. Host that was an important bill, couple decade we had not voted 0 on consider considered any legs but guns and gun safety it and was a permanent personal issue for lucy in particular and you told a story about the motion to recommit that what associated with that, and i think thats one of the things that from a memory standpoint, strikes me as what the this year and a half has been about me and my learning experience. A concept or thing called a motion to recommit which is appended to any bill in come and it is something that is sort or the last boat at the apple from the party in the minority to perfect the bill so that theoretically if we just had this happen on this motion to recommit, then everything would be perfect and the bill as a whole and would be able to pass it bipartisanly as the heritage of the concept, but the mtr has become a weapon of the part of the minority and its being something that can be used to run attack ads on the party in the majority and specific members and that was most striking to me as a person who was a freshman but not only a fresh mon but a first time legislator, there are these kinds of weapons or at this point in time that seem to be almost like youre apen kiss, not necessary any longer and that was something i was really struck by in congress. Another thing i was struck by and you without, freshman oren attention as having been largely not with a lot of content, and so i thought that was interesting, too. And i was wondering for you, when i went to college there was an he say that stands out if you could describe yourself, what would one word be. If you could describe our fresh anyone class what would be one word be and why would you use that word. Guest um, i would say remarkable. Because or the one hand, if you look at the fact that its the most number of womens and yet still so few. When i interviewed congresswoman Pat Schroeder she said i dont even note what we are celebrating here. Were not even a quarter. So its striking breath in an absence of a larger number and but that it exists. And then the diversity as i mentioned earlier. As we talk but the motion to recommit and is only on cspan can we have such a lengthy conversation but this. For me, having stood in the speakers lobbies with republicans in control and the democrats would do that and the republicans would go out and smoke cigars on the balcony, just wasnt a thing anyone paid take to, and watching out Something Like that is symbolic or has been to be revived as part of a political conversation in a sense and watching i think what was remarkable, to, besides the fact you hat enter interesting backgrounds was that you let your experiences and the newness of it, you let that unfold pretty openly. I dont think people tried to hide the fact. In fact for many pipe was a badge of honor not have been involved in politics especially washington and let your newness and fresh opinions on how things should be done, even when it didnt work out the your favor. You about the notion recommit. Walked to angie craig from minneapolis suburbs in a coffee shop, and she said i kind of regretted that. He realized only after the fact that did. She is open. Everyone is learning in front of the country and i think thats very different in ten years ago. Guest i think its really important, transparency is really important. Its particularly important to me and i think a lot of my freshman class members because we did just get here in a lot of ways. We do have fresh clean legislative records. We are trying to be thoughtful and deliberate with our processes and making sure we not only are hopefully representing people but explaining why we believe that were representing the people in whatever vote we take, and so it is important also to be human. I think thats one thing i hope that you see in a class with more women. Were trying to be more our whole selfs in terms of how we present to people, and i think thats different than some of the women who may have run before us in terms of how they felt like they had to present to people. Didnt necessarily feel like they could be their whole selves and i think my next question here is, you did spend a lot of time talking about people figuring out whether or not to run, how to run, whether they were recruited or not. I as an example was not recruited. I literally hit reply to am emilys list solicitation and said i would like to run for congress. My literal reply went to info at emilys his. Com and i didnt think anybody would ever answer me, and the did for whatever reason. I think because i was earlier on in the process, and also, i got a lot of questions early on of why are you not running for school board . Why are you not starting with state or local . And my response to folks at that time was, im 51, and i am too old for that and im qualified. I got kind of a response back, a tepid response back, who are you to think youre qualified without having any other qualifications in government. And i dont think we would have had those conversation and those kinds of responses with male candidates and i think thats something id like to understand, what would you think the differences are between men and women in running for office . Is this a class that wasnt necessarily recruited or a large part of us were recruited . What did you say in the landscape. Guest a mix. Its funny when youre reflecting upon how you got into the race and talking bow qualifications. I go back to that class of 87 freshman in the 2011 congress and one of them i spent a lot of time with was he had a pizzeria and that was his Family Business and nobody said why if the said how do you think youll beat this incumbent drop but i dont think he was laughed another of up to with regard to experience. Thats become a badge of honor in washington to be down with the people to be know your constituents, to go home a lot; so, if youre talking to a woman and saying do you have enough experience, thats automatically a different standard. If your standard is to be part of your commune, citizen lawmaker. Its very interesting and im curious to hear your thoughts on Elizabeth Warren dropping out, which is today on thursday, because thats obviously a huge piece of the conversation, and theres just to there is no getting around these almost reflexive responses to women, and, frankly, lets be honest, often from other women. Had a lot of women a chapter about republican woman and they can talk but what youre talking bolt, who is going to watch your kids, martha robey from kansas would say who is going to take care of your kids when youre in washington or on the road. These questions come up all the time and all i can say is, my conclusion is that in order to combat that you just need more women. When women can get through a primary, they will get elected but have to get through the primary and thats where a lot of that starts. Host i was stroke by matters of your book on the republican and women experiences and some differences you assessed. Shared the joy when i look at our side of the aisle this die do is versety and the color. Women tend to not wear suits and you just ease this tapestry of america and when i look to the other side of the aisle and see more somber suits and mostly men, and i want that other side of the aisle to look like america. Want the other side to be more bright and what commented did you make in the book that had to do with the republican what cant wet get more republican women elected . Guest i know when i talked to many people in washington, thats when they dont believe me when i si this and probably not universally enthusiastically so. I truly believe in having covered come and talked to so many people in congress and written this book, republicans want that, too especially woman. They wantmer win. They do want a more tie verse congress. Now diverse congress. Structurally speaking the way they have normal lie recruited people and supported people, which has to do with their overall political philosophy has to do the meritocracy, they want to be gender neutral and race neutral and always pick the best person. Think republican women in particular, especially those in the fundraising space and the recruitment space, are starting to come around to the view they did with me certainly in reporting the book, that was simply not going to work. Had to be a gender focus on row cuting women often because as we all know women many women have to be asked to run or talked into running. When theyre highly qualified, more qualified than a male incumbent or challenger. If thats the case with women you have to recruit women directly, and i talked to a woman who had run in a primary in North Carolina and she was stunned to see how many women, especially over 50, who just didnt believe that another woman should have that job. So, its something that is very regional but its going to take concerted effort. I think its just not going to say, we want more women, come on and run. Have to be structural changes in place for that iknow for me in my particular case, im a woman and also a veteran and an engineer and also an educator, and all of those different kinds of things are not very well represented in our congress. And theyre largely not really presented because access to capital is the life blood of politics, sadly, and people who are veterans or educators or women or are not those people who have vast networks of people who can support them and can provide resources for their campaigns and that sort of thing. So i think we are in a new time where there are incriesingly more and more organizations recognizing that and some on the democratic side that support women, emilys list among others, some on the republican side that support women as well. I think there are also some comping up that are supporting s. T. E. M. Professionals, engineering browns or veterans on one side of the. Other so were make something reforms that are allowing the better access to candidates that are not traditional candidates who didnt come through politics or didnt come up as lawyers as an example. I think we are creating pathways for that. I think it would be better if we had a system where we fund its campaigns that wasnt about access to capital, so that it could have a more level Playing Field and so more people could be encouraged to run on both sides of the aisle. I thought it was interesting you did spend time on shirley which is chisolm and patty marchen. Did you see a parallel. Guest some way us. The history chapter was really interesting if learned a lot obviously. What really struck me was the sexism and some of it quite just gross, was so much more prevalent in the 70s and i wanted to labor understand that. It bass because so many of the earl jim in Congress Took their dead husbands seats and viewed by their mail colleaguesed a junctions, many of them worked on the husbands campaigns and district ofts offices oh, lucy is okay because thats jerrys wife, and so there wasnt really a huge number of women asserting themselves with their own agency the way there was except fir the first woman, jeanette ranchin and everyone wanted their lemon pie recipe. Im going to make her lemon pie for womens history month, bill the way. He 7s is when women began to run on their spoken men were upset. That is also worth noting a period when women in both parties came together in the womens caucus to try to have some legislative muscle behind the scenes but a they werent on the good committees and didnt hold the gavels and work on things they could agree on some that was a much more bipartisan time for women in congress. And so this class, i think, was its not its very interesting that the Metoo Movement was happening in the background of all of this, bus thats not the same as women coming through the Womens Movement and getting elected in large numbers. Its not quite the same context but there are some similarities in terms of what is going on nationally and what is happening in our culture and women reflecting that, and women from different backgrounds who would never usually be considered for public office, certainly a federal office, coming up and deciding to run and getting elected. Think those are where i saw some parallels. Host you mentioned spouses of dead congress people. Men. Pennsylvania has only ever had seven elected women before this cycle. Actually seven women total and fur of them were the spouses or wives of former members of congress. So only three women in history in pennsylvania have been elected in their own name until the 2018 election, and now we have four. So we went from having no women in pennsylvania at the time that i was elected having four, and guest the fabulous four. Host the fab four imremember having a conversation and you include this in the book with a donor, woman lawyer who had been around for a while, and she was talking to me about being supportive of my campaign and my indicate si. And she plead with me i would not leave the Congress Unless i felt there was a stability in the pennsylvania caucus for women, that pennsylvania has the kind of heritage of having only one woman at a time and that was our limit and now we do have four, and so i think were committed to make sugar this isnt an aberration and its permanent. You did write something in the become that says once in congress no one wants to lose. And for centrists every day is borrowed time. Can you talk about that and how its played out in the last year, particularly for the women members. Guest yes. Were seeing some mirror of that in the primary for the white house, the democratic primary. The house its remarkable to me how many people in the country who are very excited about having this many women in congress or democrats who excited about democrats take can back the house, really struggle with the concept how that occurred and how it occurred was democrats beat something republicans, and how did that happen . Did not happen with the most liberal members, the most progressive members and yet the focus of the democratic democray has been to focus on the progressive element and the notion that the party itself is organically moving to the left. Theres some research to back that up. But right now, if you look at how people are voting, we see what is going on in the democratic primary, if you want to attract centrists and some republicans, which says coalition you need to win certainly the white house, and in some districts where its more republicans or equal numbers, you need that coalition to win a house seat, too. You cant be embracing the most progressive positions and probably naturally you wouldnt be, because youre running in that district, and that tension of where some of the most progressive faces and the more prominent faces of the election we know who were talk can about, particularly alexandria ocasiocortez who are presenting the bernie part of the party. Bernie sanders has done very well. One of the last people standing. No question theres a large segment of the party with him but thats not the growing section as per se right now and not the only part of the party. When glory divide government to boot with any hope of getting anything done, that sense that you could only do things progressive legislation or youre not a real democrat, i watch that vex these moderates who are saying, not only die want to hold my seat but thats the only way to keep the house and that tension never seemed to fully become resolved from what i could see, and women were of course the backbone of a lot of the races. Host in my particular district, i have held a seat that is the vast majority is county called Chester County, and Chester County has been red for more than 160 years and my community is 40 democrats and 40 republicans and 20 independents and we are a very purple place, and i think i am one of those people youre mentioning in terms of the race that i was able to the house seat i was able to flip being a pragmatic purple places and something i hope that women bring to the table and veterans as well, is understanding youre all part of the same team, and honestly across the aisle youre all part of the same team. All patriots, all part of this solution and whether were red or blue or purposing, its really important we recognize that were there to represent the 700,000 or so folks in our communities that hopefully we were brought there because we represent those people and so i might not be the same person as alexandra is or somebody from a red district that im not from, but that is okay because thats our job. Were there to try to find the Common Ground and try to come together and one thing i try to explain to people