I really excited to have the opportunity to have this conversation with you today because i dont have a terribly good memory to be honest so i am grateful you took the time to write down so many of the stories over the last year and a half. What inspired you to write this book . My editor called me right after the election and said we have a Record Number of women in congress with so many different districts. Dont you think that would be a great book . You have covered congress for so many years. And with the killer deadline so this will be all the people and to have that experience with the tea party what that was like so i thought they were bookends and it was an interesting contrast. So you tell a lot of stories so what stands out as the most remarkable story that you would want to share . A couple of things. And to watch all of you interact. And to find the National Group of security women. So close and tight knit. The what was interesting to me. And with that legislative memory and just that she had run on that issue with that painful horrific experience with gun violence and so many personal stories and politics obviously the bill did not get any traction in congress and then to see the contrast of the moderate progressive and over the amendments to that. Beverly was an important bill that we spent several decades in legislation on gutting gun safety and it was a personal issue for lucy in particular as i saw in the book he told a story about the motion to recommit, that was associated with that and i think thats one of the things from a memory standpoint strikes me as what its been about in my learning experience there is a concept or an actual thing called emotion to recommit which basically gets appended to every bill of any consequence that gets voted on in congress and as its history being something that the last bite at the apple from the party thats in the minority to be a to perfect the bill and if we just had this happen on the motion to recommit that everything would be committe ped wed be able to pass bipartisan is the heritage of the concept but the interior has become a weapon of the party of the minority in a lot of ways and become something that can be used to run attack ads on the party of the majority and specific members of the party in the majority and this is one of the things that was most striking to me as a person who is a freshman but not only a freshman a firsttime legislator that there are a ready weapons almost like your not in a longer, thats what i was struck by in congress, you wrote a little bit about it with freshman orientation largely with not a lot of concept and so i thought that was interesting too. I was wondering for you when i went to college there was an essay that stands out in my mind which was in one word if you could describe yourself what would that when. Reporter and if you could describe her freshman class, what with that one word be and why would you use that word. I would say remarkable because on the one hand if you look at the fact that the most number of women was still so feel when i interviewed pat shorter about this she said i dont even know what were celebrating. It is striking and an absence of a larger number but it exists. As we talk about that a motion to recommit, only on cspan can we have such a lengthy conversation about this its a fascinating thing. And for me having stood in the speakers lobby with open to republicans in control and a lot of the guys would go out and smoke cigars on the balcony and they wouldnt Pay Attention to them watching Something Like that that is symbolic in the political conversation in a sense. In watching what is remarkable with all the very interesting background and you let your experiences in the newness of it unfold pretty openly, i dont think people try to hide the fact, many people thought it was a badge of honor to not be in politics especially in washington and to let your fresh opinions on how things should begin, even when it did not work out in your favor. You talked about the motion to commit again i was talking with angie craig, the minneapolis suburbs in the coffee shop and she said i kinda regretted that, i realized only after the fact what that actually did, everyone is learning and front of the country and i think that is very different than ten years ago. I think it is very important transparency is really important, is particular important to me anything a lot of my freshman class numbers because we did just get here in a lot of ways and we do have fresh and clean legislative records and were trained to be thoughtful and deliberate with our processes and making sure that we not only are representing people but explaining why we believe we are representing the people in whatever boat that we take. It is important to be human because that is one thing that i hope that you see in a class with more women that we are trying to be our whole selves in terms of how we present to people and i think that is different than some of the women who may have ran before us in terms of how they felt that they may have to prevent to people they did not necessarily feel like they can be there host cells. My next question, you spent a lot of time about people figuring out whether not to run and how to run and whether they were recruited or not recruited, rising sample was not recruited, i literally hit reply to a list of solicitation and attach my resume and said i would like to run for congress in my little reply went to emilys list. Com and i did not they get all that anybody would answer me in the universe and they did for whatever reason because it was earlier on in the process. Also i got a lot of questions early on i why you are not running for school board, why are you not with state or local, and my folks to that time woods im 51, im too old for that and im not qualified. I got a response back of who you are to think youre qualified without having any other qualifications even in government. I dont thing we would have the conversation in the responses with male candidates and i think that is something i would like to understand, what do you think the differences are between men and women in running for office, do you think this is a class that was not necessarily recruited or a large part were recruited, what did you see in the landscape of all of that. It was a mix, it is funny when youre reflecting upon how you got into the race and talking about qualifications, i go back to that class of seven freshmen in 2011 congress and we spent a lot of time at the pizzeria and that was his Family Business and i dont think anybody said i think they said how are you going to be this incumbent democrat but i dont think he was laughed out of town with regard to experience. Again thats become a badge of honor in washington to be down with the people and know your constituents, to go home a lot. So if you are talking to a woman and say do you have enough experience, thats automatically a different standard, if your standard is to become part of your community of a citizen lawmaker if you will, it is 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 there is no getting around these reflective responses to women and frankly, often from other women. I had a lot of women especially the chapter in the book of republican women and they talk about what your talking about they said whos going to watch her kids martha, robie from alabama who is retiring said whos going to take care of your kids when youre in washington on the road. These questions come up all the time and all i can say is my conclusion is in order to combat that, you just need more women, when women can get their primary, they will get elected but they have to get to the primary and i think you see thats where a lot of that start. I was struck by a lot of your book with the democratic and women experiences and there were differences that you assess, share the joy when i look at the democratic side of the aisle and the diversity in the commodity and literally the color because women tend to not wear suits so you see this a path history of america, when i looked to the other side of the eye and see more somber suits and mostly men and i want the other side of the aisle to look like america, i want the other side to be more bright and what comments did you make in the book that had to do with the republican, why cant we get more republican women elected. I talked to many people in washington and they dont believe me when i say this and is probably not universally so but i truly believe in having congress and talking too so many people and republicans do want that too, especially women, they want more women, they want a more diverse congress. Structurally speaking the way that they normally have recruited people and supported people which has to do with their overall political philosophy has to do with homeric proctor see that they want to be genderneutral and always pick the best person and i think republican women in particular especially those in a son raising space are starting to come around that that was simply not going to work, they had to be a gender focus in recruiting women. We all know women have to be talked into running sometimes, there qualified in a man, or challenger. If that is the case with women, you will have to recruit women directly. I talked to a woman who had run in a primary North Carolina and she was stunned to see how many women especially in 50s did not believe another women should have a job. Its something thats very regional but its going to take concerted effort, i think its not we want more women and come on and run the customer structural changes. For me in my particular case, not only am i a woman but im a veteran and also an engineer and an educator and all of those different kinds of things are not very well represented in our congress and largely not represented because of access to capital is the lifeblood of politics sadly and people who are veterans in educator or women are not those people who have vast networks of people who can support them and provide resources for the campaign and that sort of thing. We are in a new time where theres increasingly more and more organizations are recognizing that in some on the democratic side that support women, emilys list and some on the republican side that support women as well, i think there are some that are coming up and supporting stem professionals, people with engineering backgrounds or veterans on one side or the other, i think were making some reforms that are allowing better access to candidates other nontraditional candidates that did not come through politics or come up as lawyers as an example. As a creating pathways for that, course i think would be better if we had a system where we find a campaign that was not about access to capital so it could have a more level Playing Field so more people could be encouraged to run on both sides of the aisle. I thought it was interesting that you spent some time on shirley and patsy, i think that was really fascinating did you see any parallels between that conversation and todays member. In some way, the history chapter was really interesting, and learned a lot. What really struck me was the sexism in the growth was more prevalent in the 70s and i really wanted to labor understand that because so many of the early women in Congress Took third dead husband seat and they were viewed by their male colleagues as adjuncts and their hasbeens campaign and the District Office and so forth. Lucy is okay because thats jerrys wife. So there was not really asserting themselves with their own agency their weight they were accepted when she showed up in town and everybody wanted her lemon pie recipe or. I will make her piper Women History Month and im excited to do that. The 70s is when we ran on their own, thats when theyre pushing back and really upset. That is also when women and both parties came together in the caucus to really have some legislative muscle behind the scenes because they were not all the good communities and did not hold gobbles and things like that, they put a lot of ideological off the table and that was a much more bipartisan time for women in congress. So this class i think is very interesting that the me too movement was happening in the background of all of this, thats not the same of the women coming to the Womens Movement in getting elected in large numbers, its not the same context but there are similarities in terms of whats going on nationally and happening in our culture and women reflecting that in women from different backgrounds who would never be considered for Public Office in a federal Office Coming up and deciding to run in getting elected. Thats where i saw some parallels. You mentioned the spouses of dead congress with people in pennsylvania has only had seven elected people before the cycle, seven women total and i think four of them were the spouses or the wifes or the former members of congress, only three women in history have been elected in their own name. Now we have four, we went from having a women in pennsylvania at the time i was elected to having for. The fab four. I remember having a conversation and you include this in the book with the donor and a woman lawyer who had been around for a while and she was talking to me about being supportive of my campaign and candidacy but basically pleading and begging with me if she was going to support me that i would commit and i would not leave the Congress Unless i felt there was a stability in a pennsylvania caucus for women in pennsylvania had a heritage of only having one woman at a time and that was our limit and now we do have four and i think we are collectively committed to making sure there was not an aberration in a permanence as well. You did write something in the book that says once in congress, no one wants to lose and for borrowed time. Can you talk about that dynamic and how it played out in the last year for tickly for the women member. We are seeing this. Specifically the democratic primary. It is remarkable to me how many people in the country who are very excited of having this many women in congress or democrats were excited about democrats taking back the house, really struggle with the concept of how that occurred and how it occurred was democrats beating republicans. How did that happen, it did not happen with the most liberal and most progressive members. The focus of the Democratic Party whether criticizing or embracing them has been to focus on the progressive element, the notion that the party itself is organically moving to the left. There is some research to back that up her right now if you look at how people are voting and we see with going on on the democratic primary, if you want to attract centrist and republican to is a coalition you need to win the white house words more republicans are equal youll need that coalition to win house the, you cannot be embracing the most progressive position and probably naturally you would not be because youre running in that district and that tension of where the most progressive faces in the prominent faces of that election obviously we know who were talking about, for tickly alexandria ocasiocortez with the burning part of the party, Bernie Sanders has done very well as a primary, he was one of the last people standing, theres no question that its there with them but thats not the green session and certainly not the only part of the party. When youre divided government with any hope of getting anything done, the sense that you can only do things progressive legislation or not a real democrat, i watched that with a moderate to her say not only do i want to hold my seat but thats only way you will keep the house, the tension never seemed to fully become resolved from what i can see, women were the backbone and a lot of those races. In my particular district i have held the seat for the vast majority is a county called Chester County and its been a red for more than 160 years in my community is 40 democrats and 40 republicans and 20 independent and we are a very purple place and i think i am one of those people that you are mentioning in terms of the race in the house seat that i was able to flip being one of the pragmatic perk will places and something that i hope women bring to the people and veterans as well and understanding that you are part of the same team and honestly across the aisle youre all the same team, were all patriots and part of the solution and whether were red, blue or purple i think its important that we recognized that were there to represent 100,000 or so folks that are in our community that were brought there hopefully because we represent those people. I might not be the same person as alexandria is, i might not be the sound person from a red district, but that is okay because that is our job, were there to find a Common Ground and try to come together, one thing that i tried to explain to people in my mind it is not a linear spectrum of red and blue, it is a circle and in my opinion the blue and the red, the hard blue and the hard red come together at the very top of that and thats when you see some interesting coalition that happened at the very top because there in some ways more similars than they know they are. Down in the purple area you also have synergies going on particularly in the congress we have a lot of veterans in the purple part because they flip seats, you have a strong red and strong blue like authorized reused of military force is a great example where we might have the opportunity to have real conversation because were representing our communities and because we come from different places. I think it is really cool. How we define the moderate this change so much, the most compelling example is the notion of the public option, now with progressives not to support medicare for all, many people dont, they prefer public option, the public option has become a squished position for democrats, lets not forget ten years ago that was very far left, people lost their seats over that. We dont think of the public option now as a leftwing policy concept at all, that was 30 years ago, that was ten years ago. I think it sometimes how we define people, we could complicate that. The topic is something a little more fun, i left that you included the part about the member orientation so i found it to be a frustrating experience during the freshman orientation you literally had different buses for democrats and republicans, we spent a lot of time focused on things that were very hr which of course she would expected in orientation but very little on things of what is an mtr and why should we care abo