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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKatie Hill: It's Not Over After All
Katie Hill: Its Not Over After All
I overcame the desperation I felt after stepping down from Congress, and Im still in the fight.
By Katie Hill
Ms. Hill is a former United States representative.
On Nov. 6, 2018, I was elected to Congress; at 31, I was one of the youngest women ever elected to the House of Representatives. One year later, I was sitting on a train to New York to meet with my lawyers about suing The Daily Mail for cyber exploitation and I was no longer a member of Congress....
The day that my communications director ran into my office and showed me the nudes and private text messages that had been published on a right-wing website called Red State, everything came crashing down. I believe my husband is the source of the images. (He has reportedly denied this; his father said in an interview that his son believed he had been hacked. My husband and his lawyer did not respond to requests from The Times for comment.) At first, I was in denial. I couldnt accept that the future I had imagined as a leader in Congress the job I loved and knew I was making a difference by being in was over...
People have speculated that Speaker Pelosi or the party leadership asked me to resign because of the photos and the allegations about me. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, one of the most difficult moments during my resignation process was my phone call to the Speaker, a woman I admire more than anyone and whom I had come to love. She told me I didnt have to do this, that the country needed me and that she wished I hadnt made this decision, but she respected me and what I felt I needed to do. I told her what I told everyone else when I announced my resignation: that it was the right thing to do....
So the next day I put on my battle uniform: a red dress suit that my mom had bought me. I put on my war paint: bright red lipstick. I stepped up to that lectern and told the world that although my time in Congress was over, I wasnt done I was just moving to another battlefield. I closed my speech, saying: We will not stand down. We will not be broken. We will not be silenced. We will rise, and we will make tomorrow better than today.
I yield the balance of my time for now, but not forever. I meant that not just for myself, but for all of us.
I dont know exactly whats ahead for me, and I know theres a lot more pain ahead. But Im in the fight, and Im glad its not all over after all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/sunday/katie-hill-resignation.html
rampartc
(5,263 posts)Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)It was very foolish...likely a GOP operation and it worked.
CaptainTruth
(6,546 posts)amywalk
(254 posts)We have to fight in the mud that they occupy. No more resigning under any circumstances for us until we take back the country.
MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)She has a manipulative asshole estranged husband who is trying to ruin her life. She is allowed to take a minute to regroup.
DBoon
(22,285 posts)There is a whole infrastructure of right wing media designed to take down liberals and progressives via sleazy immoral methods
That manipulative asshole estranged husband would not have gotten far without these enablers
Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)power over us if we let it...I had an ex posted pics of me which I didn't even know existed...a big who cares.
MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Cuz you aren't a public figure.
So good for you I guess.
amywalk
(254 posts)She runs again and the good folks of her district see fit to elect her again. I really like her.
Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)Hopefully, that will change.
amywalk
(254 posts)to the wolves whenever a Republican says something supposedly, scandalous about one of our elected lawmakers. They stopped resigning years ago, why are we still doing it. No more kicking our own out. We should say we will leave it up to their voters to decide. Period.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)future in elective public service if she wants it. My guess this statement in the opinion section of the NYT is part of setting the stage for an eventual return to public service, perhaps initially with a private institution and, if elective, perhaps 2022 or 2024.
Of course, after her very foolish actions, my best guess is it's unlikely she'll immediately soar straight onto the leadership track she was on, even with her friends. Others with more self discipline who didn't need this kind of lesson will already be there. But with her talent, if she wants a comeback she can make it happen.
Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)in these situations. What are we now puritans...should we get out the stocks? I am sick of this. There was no sexual harrassment...two consenting adults...she should have said it was no ones' f'ing business...as for the photos a big who cares...an ex put my pics on some stupid website...I didn't give a damn. I didn't know he had them...or took them actually. But I still didn't care. Just my two cents but it seems we are acting like the right these days and we shouldn't...
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)regarding everything from drinking alcohol to color and style of clothing to choice of foods. Most people will say anything to set ourselves up to be just a tiny bit above and better than our peers. Criticism seems a part of the human condition I suppose. Social media has given the old-fashioned gossip circle international exposure.
I am proud that most progressives have grown to be more above that practice than so-called conservatives (a word they use in a hypocritical way as well).
KY...........
Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)in her bedroom...and was this a plot to get rid of her...I would like to know that.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)A lot of people invested in electing and bringing her along and they needed her, including very much her constituents. She assumed big duties that she betrayed. That is not okay. It's shameful.
Like Bill Clinton, if she wants to be in elective office, especially as a Democrat, she needs to keep her zipper closed. As said, I'm proud of Nancy for deciding she would have the party's support to try to bring her through this, the costs and risks of which had to be weighed. But not of Hill.
Hill had to run for reelection this year, with our party doing our best to keep her in office, you know, and one of her duties was not to give the Republicans major ammunition to use against her. It's a swing district, for god's sake! With what the Republicans have become, and with foreign nations helping them by attacking Democrats running for office (everyone knows they are doing that, right?), nothing was more certain than that her private life would eventually be used against her by enemies of the Democratic Party, almost certainly before the GE next summer. Some of her friends must have known and warned her.
And as we can see, even if some might think they should, turns out females do NOT have a special dispensation from vicious Republican and Russian political attacks to take them out. That's just the way it is. Bad people don't play by any rules well-meaning people try to set for them.
Btw, RWers both here and in Russia, and many other nations, are persecuting LGBTQ; and in the U.S. they're eager to remove the legal protections we passed so they can do it right. I don't think a lot of people realize the danger they face. They need smart support, not just well meaning.
Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)view of sex...particularly for women. And holding our elected to such a high standard which I honestly regard as ridiculous...will elect the GOP...Also, we will most like lose the seat. It might have blown over or not at which point she could decide not to run.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)were already busily fashioning everything their investigators could find on Hill into a bomb. They'll have more. Nothing I care about, but some voters will and this is a swing district. And what they can't discover they can create out of lies.
We agree on so much, Dems, but clearly not on the virulence and power of the Republican leadership's determination to take over our nation permanently. What's not to understand about the religious right's (from whom they draw much of their power) plan to completely eliminate LGBTQ rights, including the right to even exist? They intend to restore a level of persecution that forces all who don't conform to hide or have their lives ruined and even be imprisoned for sexual deviance.
And this is connected to many rights everyone currently has. The right to privacy (to be left alone by government, as in birth control, abortion, elective surgery, internet choice) is on the line for all.
It's not just "the vote, stupid" for us, but for our representatives in congress. Either we have a majority or they do.
Demsrule86
(68,347 posts)standard...we give away our power everyday we do this...I thank god the Governor of Virginia did not resign or we would have had GOP types in control of the state...and many here cried for such a resignation...it must stop.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Hill resigned: Serious ethical violations regarding the use of her power over people whose careers depended on her attitudes. Thousands of other Democrats adhere to them throughout their years in office. The people on these threads who imagine this is about Hill's sexual orientation are wrong. We could and would of course have rallied around that; rallying to try to excuse sexual exploitation in the workplace would have been problematic. I wouldn't have been part of it.
I'm with you on VA's governor, but it's not the same thing. Now, if Northam'd gotten caught in blackface at a white frat party as governor in his late 50s, he would have had to resign. As it is, Northam doesn't need the "break it and see what happens" lesson Hill's getting at our expense, which she also should never have needed.
Nature Man
(869 posts)will do or say. They are the party of liars. They'll just make shit up.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)what the media do with it, and much of the MSM are spreading lies for the Republicans. Hill became much less weaponizable, and profitable, as soon as she became an ex- Democratic congresswoman.
Nature Man
(869 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)through-negligence viewers to stop watching dishonest MSNBC shows just because they're entertaining. Hear lies often enough, and people store them as truth, even knowing they're lies, and recall them as truth. And yet, every day they line up like cows come to the milking barn. Same for web sites with professionals who know just how to play on individual weaknesses to turn them into self-defeating idiocies.
Doesn't it always takes two? The manipulator and the willing victim.
mcar
(42,208 posts)She is not backing down, which I appreciate. Her account here of her thoughts of suicide are harrowing.
She is a young, bright politician. I hope we see more of her.
JoeOtterbein
(7,697 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)AllaN01Bear
(17,358 posts)She should have stayed in
sprinkleeninow
(20,133 posts)Happy Hoosier
(7,077 posts)KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)* someone took unauthorized photos of her in a very private setting.
* someone released those photos out onto the internet without authorization.
We now live in an age where almost anyone's hopes, dreams and career can virtually be destroyed in milliseconds over the internet and it can almost be done with impunity. Even most new TV sets now have cameras in the front that can be hacked.
Ms. Hill committed no crime. Nor did she do anything that's not done in private throughout America every day. Her only mistake may possibly have been in being too trusting of people she thought would respect her privacy and dignity.
I can't in good faith criticize her decision because 1.) I don't know her personality, 2.) I don't fully know the extent of evil harassment she and her friends and family experienced during the weeks following the photo release, and 3.) it ain't my job. Just by her description, it sounds pretty bad and took her to the point of considering suicide.
America has not yet grown up. What sort of evil person would post nasty posters of her around her home town? Who are the people that huddle in extremist internet chat rooms to plot against American citizens and pass private data round the web?
We must do everything in our power to expose and take down the dark right-wing attack machinery around the globe. Republicans don't seem to care and are unlikely to legislate to help prevent this type of event from happening again.
samnsara
(17,570 posts)..i hope we see her in the public eye at some time in the future. I thought she added some fun to Congress..
Nature Man
(869 posts)BECAUSE he likes grabbing pussy and fucking porn stars.
His "base" sees that as "telling it like it is."
obamanut2012
(25,908 posts)She shouldn't have resigned.