Becca Balint Gets to Work

Below  are some highlights from an article in Seven Days VT (January 25) Vermonts’s First Congresswoman Gets to Work


Issues She’s Working On

She arrived in D.C. with a list of issues she was eager to work on — affordable housing, the mental health care crisis, reproductive rights. Now she found herself at the mercy of a Republican majority that couldn’t get its act together to elect a leader.

Balint told WPTZ-TV that she hoped to join forces with moderate Republicans to address the nation’s mental health crisis. Her mood was ebullient. She was breaking barriers; she was ready to hustle. “My heart is bursting in the best way,” she said. “I love meeting new people.”

The Cheeriest Representative

Balint debriefed with her chief of staff, Megan Garcia, and her communications director, Sophie Pollock, about what she should do with her hands while she was on camera, one of the many considerations of her new life. “I have to remember not to do this” — Balint emphatically placed a hand over her chest — “because the microphone’s here, and it goes krrrrrrr. So maybe I should just not grab my solar plexus.”

As Balint was miked up for an interview with WCAX (“You’re definitely our cheeriest,” one of the producers remarked), she spotted a familiar face.

Making History

Balint was asked how she planned to keep making history.

“Love that question,” Balint said. “I want Vermonters to always recognize me — as the person I was as a teacher, and that’s who I was as a legislator and as leader of the Senate in Vermont. Unfortunately, that’s not true for so many politicians in this country. So I might make headlines simply by being myself.”

“Scrappy Little Dyke”

In mid-November, Balint and the other newly elected Democratic women attended an orientation event at a Capitol Hill restaurant, hosted by the Elect Democratic Women PAC. The chair, U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), summoned the group to the front of the room and asked them to introduce themselves using only three words. There were at least 100 people in attendance, including a couple dozen senior members of Congress. Without hesitation, Frankel said, Balint jumped to the front of the line and yelled, “Scrappy little dyke!”

This pronouncement, according to witnesses, had the effect of an exploding tube of confetti. “It was just hailed,” said Salinas, the Oregon representative, who was among the newcomers at the event. “I think it was a watershed moment for a lot of the freshmen women, who were maybe a little more reluctant to put on their true selves.”

The Karaoke Lounge— A Moment of Exuberance

In the karaoke lounge, Balint was in her element. She sang Dolly Parton to a midwestern congresswoman’s Kenny Rogers in a rendition of “Islands in the Stream”; she performed Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” accompanied by all the midwesterners in the room. At one point during the evening, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), whom Balint has long admired, said to her: “You’re so fun.”

For Balint, those moments of exuberance are a spiritual necessity. “We are facing a very cynical, extremist element, and we have to find our joy, or else we’ll become embittered and burnt out,” she said. “And then we’re not gonna be able to fight the good fight.”