At 18, I Guarded The Parking Lot

My Parents Taught Me To Never Give Up And To Always Believe That My Future Could Be Whatever I Dreamt It To Be.

I Went To Law School. And I Became A Prosecutor. I Took On A Specialty That Very Few Choose To Pursue. I Prosecuted Child Abuse And Child Homicide Cases. Cases That Were Truly Gut-wrenching. But Standing Up For Those Kids, Being Their Voice For Justice Was The Honor Of A Lifetime.

In New Mexico, I Inherited The Largest Structural Deficit In State History, And Our Legislature Is Controlled By Democrats. We Don't Always Agree, But We Came Together In A Bipartisan Manner And Turned That Deficit Into A Surplus. And We Did It Without Raising Taxes.

We Talked About Many Issues, Like Welfare, Is It The Way Of Life Or Hand Up? Talked About Size Of Government, How Much Should It Tax Families And Small Businesses? And When We Left That Lunch, We Got In The Car And I Looked Over At Chuck And Said, "i'll Be Damned. We're Republicans."

Before I Ran For District Attorney, Two Republicans Invited My Husband And Me To Lunch. And I Knew A Party-switch Was Exactly What They Wanted. So, I Told Chuck, We'll Be Polite, Enjoy A Free Lunch And Then Say Goodbye. But We Talked About Issues - They Never Used The Words Republican, Or Democrat, Conservative Or Liberal. We Talked About Many Issues, Like Welfare - Is It A Way Of Life, Or A Hand-up? Talked About The Size Of Government - How Much Should It Tax Families And Small Businesses? And When We Left That Lunch, We Got In The Car And I Looked Over At Chuck And Said, "i'll Be Damned, We're Republicans."