Quintessential Millenial
……Say it fast. 10 times. Even 5 times. Katie Hill Quintessential Millenial.
……Let’s not be frivolous. Katie Hillis not. She is 30 years old and gearing up to defeat Steve Knight who is not that much older. One poll has her leading by double digits, but most observers consider the race a toss up.
……Knight is a tough guy. He was a Los Angeles cop for 18 years. During the 2014 election, he had a verbal quarrel with a protester. When the protester touched him, he shouted “I’ll drop your ass,” for which he later apologized.
……Knight was cautious about Trump in 2016, refused to make an endorsement because of the “groping” tape. In Congress he has been loyal to Trump — supporting the tax cuts, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, delays in Defense Department rules prohibiting pay day loans, and religious freedom provisions that permit corporations and others to discriminate based on sexual orientation.
……Katie Hill is the grandchild of prosperity that came as a result of military scholarships. Her parents were a nurse and a cop. One grandfather went to Yale on a ROTC scholarship and became an aeronautical engineer. The other grandfather, after a stint in the army, used the GI Bill to go to college and to pay for graduate school at Princeton. He taught political science at UCLA.
……Kate Hill brings her own kind of toughness and risk taking. She and her husband are rock climbers. Her video showing her climbing a roughly 100 foot high sandstone rock could be narrated by her only through the use of a drone.
……Kate Hill uses both toughness and responsiveness as an advocate for the underdog. She worked as Executive Director of People Assisting the Homeless (PATH). She was instrumental in getting a referendum passed to help provide homes and support for the homeless in Los Angeles.
……Katie Hill and her husband own and live on a small farm. They raise goats. chickens and turkeys. They also care for rescue animals.
……Katie Hill combines strength and sensitivity when she focuses on women’s issues. She recalls when she became pregnant at age 18. She, her parents, and her then boyfriend, now husband struggled to decide what to do. She had a miscarriage, relieving her of a decision. She talks about how intensely personal, how difficult, how alone a decision about abortion is – despite family support. She stresses how important it is for woman to have full control over their bodies and their decisions.
……Katie Hill describes herself as a moderate politically. He website has three major headings: Health Care, Rebuild the Middle Class, and Representative Government.
- Health care:
- She would work toward universal health care initially through the ACA, ultimately toward Medicare for all. She notes the importance of health care for women, veterans, and those in need of mental health support. She expresses confidence that it is possible to achieve sensible gun safety and to protect communities through support of the police.
- Rebuild the Middle Class
- She focuses on reducing the income gap, fairness in taxes, effective schools, affordable housing, immigration reform that includes a path for citizenship and border control that focuses on gun, drug, and sex traffickers.
- Representative Government
- She advocates campaign finance that helps small donors, controlling the revolving door between lobbying and legislating, incentivizing corporations to behave consistent with the public good, and encouraging the young to be active in politics. She values social justice.
Two issues are worth a separate mention. Fund raising. Katie Hill is good at it. She is raising enough money to be competitive with an incumbent Republican Congressman.……Sexual identity. Katie Hill says she has identified as bisexual since she was a teenager. She is married to a man. They share a farm they live and interests like rock climbing. So far, the public response to her self-identification has been positive.
……Sexual identity is, on the other hand, problematic for Steve Knight. His father was a state senator, the state senator responsible for California’s same sex marriage ban. Steve Knight’s son is married to a man. They were married by Gavin Newsome in San Francisco when Newsome, now the Democratic candidate for Governor of California, defied the state-wide ban and married several same sex partners until the courts stopped him.
……I find nothing about Steve Knight’s relationship to either his father or his son. Hill focuses on neither in her campaign. As I write this Note, I can not erase Knight’s father or his son from my consciousness, They may remain in the consciousness of some constituents of CA 25 as well.……I urge readers to support Katie Hill https://www.katiehillforcongress.com/ for Congress. No matter how effective a fund raiser she may be, California Congressional campaigns this season are beyond expensive. Every dollar helps. Help.
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