Donna Edwards revels in outsider approach to politics.
'Years before Rep. Donna F. Edwards took her seat in the House of Representatives, she and a small group of advocates trudged through the halls of Capitol Hill in search of any lawmaker who would listen to a message that wasn't easy to hear.
Bill text in hand, Edwards marched from office to office to sell members on the idea that domestic violence had become so pervasive it required a federal response — that Congress, in other words, had to do something.
"We were just so rough around the edges; we really did not know how to get anything done," said Debby Tucker, a longtime advocate on the issue who worked with Edwards to help pass the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. "But we were burning with the desire to get something done."
Edwards, 57, a Prince George's County lawmaker first elected in 2008, has long pushed for change as an outsider. That was the case when she advocated for the domestic violence law, which provided funding to help victims, and it is now a central message of her campaign for Maryland's open Senate seat.
The Oxon Hill woman does not have support from many elected officials in the state, or in Washington. But Edwards is comfortable with that — she notes frequently that many Democratic power brokers also wrote off Barbara A. Mikulski when she first ran for Senate in 1986.
Edwards and Rep. Chris Van Hollen are now seeking Mikulski's seat in what has become among the most closely watched Senate primaries in the nation.
"For me, at least, she's a refreshing change from inside politics, and from business as usual," said Kweisi Mfume, the former congressman and NAACP leader, who recently endorsed Edwards. "Over and over again she's been knocked down, and she continues to get up."
What Edwards offers is a perspective she says is sorely lacking in the Senate — that of a single mother, an African-American woman, a person who knows the sting of supplementing a trip to the grocery store with help from a food bank.'>>>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/2016-senate-race/bs-md-edwards-profile-20160418-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
