Voices: When I need to restore my faith in democracy, I think of my friend Mia Love

I think we were both a little afraid of each other. The town hall was in a blue area and I was one of the only ones to come up afterwards to talk to Mia Love. Her district director stood extra close, as if she were worried that I could become a physical threat. My expectations were low. I was there to talk to her about climate change, and she had not given any hint in her campaign that she’d be open to that discussion.

Those few minutes did not immediately change my mind — nor probably hers — but they started a process over four years or so of becoming friends. We talked about the outdoors and trail running and other completely normal things. We found lots to agree on and other things to laugh about. I left the town hall saying, “Either she’s really, really good at this – or she’s not who I thought she was.”

Mia is the first member of Congress I have hugged, and some of her staffers remain my lifelong friends. She convinced me that democracy works — that congressional offices are open to hearing from ordinary citizens and that they are filled with young energetic Americans who work hard to represent their districts.

On our first visit to Washington, D.C., my wife Lauren and I met with Mike Squires in Mia’s office. Mike looked like he was 18 — and he still looks that way now a decade later. Mike was the second crack in my assumptions. We left her office saying, “If she’s hiring people like that, then she’s definitely not who we thought she was.”

I soon discovered that Mike wasn’t the only one. Mia’s House office was fun. Yes – everyone there was working long hours for low pay. But there was good energy the moment you walked in the door. I don’t know what I was expecting, but fun hadn’t entered my imagination.

Over time we did a town hall together, appeared in media stories together and wrote an op-ed together. I got to present Mia with a climate leadership award in Washington, D.C. At the public debate in her last campaign, she shouted out my daughter (also named Mia) as one of the constituents who came to talk to her about issues. And as the election returns came in, our whole family rooted for late ballots to break her way.

She said, “Citizens’ Climate Lobby not only changed my mind; they also changed my heart.” Well Mia — the feeling is mutual. You gave me an incredible gift: the opportunity to figure out how wonderfully and completely wrong I had been. I’ve defended Mia to people on the left, and to people on the right. I know what’s inside, and I will always be in her corner.

The process of getting to know her changed me in ways I can only begin to describe. I gradually became more like her. I’m no longer nervous to talk to people who are different from me. I do it with the goal of figuring out what we have in common rather than what divides us. I was wrong once, and I could be again.

Mia was described today as having “defiant positivity,” and that is exactly how I think of her. She believed fiercely in the promise of America — in an America that gives back, makes tough choices and has gritty determination. When I need to restore my faith in our democracy, Mia’s memory is one of the things that helps me bring it back. I’m proud to hold some of her defiant positivity in my heart.

Tom Moyer is the Utah state co-coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change.

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