Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Rep. Youngblood Gets National Attention

State Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, has been in the national news twice recently.

The latest time is today when she was in the Washington Post's "40 Under 40" list. (40 people under the age of 40 "who have made names for themselves in politics outside of Washington, D.C.")

For all the attention paid to Wendy Davis in neighboring Texas, Monica Youngblood’s personal story is similar, even as her party is different. She has said she was raised in poverty by a single mother, and she later became a teenage single mom herself. She later started her own real estate business and is now serving her first term in the New Mexico state House. She was recently named a rising star by the Republican National Committee, and she serves on the board of the Future Majority Project at the Republican State Leadership Committee -- a national group for state-level Republicans.

Youngblood also was featured on a recent NPR story about women in politics. The May 5 story starts with a segment about her.

When Monica Youngblood got the call, she thought it was a joke. The call came from a man she had worked to help get elected.

"It's your time," she says he told her. "We need people like you in Santa Fe. We need a voice like yours who's lived here, who's been through what you've been through. I think you need to really consider it."

When she realized it wasn't a joke, Youngblood had a lot of questions — and self-doubt. ...

Listen HERE