Mia Love deserves every word of the praise she has been receiving from Utah political leaders since her untimely death from cancer Sunday at the age of 49.
Love was elected to represent Utah’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. She started her political involvement young and rose quickly. After serving as a City Council member and then mayor of the Utah County boomtown of Saratoga Springs, she was the first Black woman elected to Congress as a Republican.
It was an accomplishment that she earned, working hard and reaching out, first to constituents in Utah, then to her colleagues in the House. Her work ethic, mixed with a welcome measure of joy, deservedly drew national attention.
She brought a useful voice of conservatism and Utah values to the overwhelmingly Democratic Congressional Black Caucus. She also was one of the few Republicans — and, at the time, only Utahn — sensible enough to join the House Climate Solutions Caucus. Climate change is, after all, a major issue in Utah and the West, no matter what party you are a member of.
The indefatigable Love wound up running for Congress four times, narrowly losing her first contest to long-time Democratic incumbent Jim Matheson. She was primed for a rematch two years later, but Matheson, seeing Love’s charisma and national backing, chose that moment to retire from politics.
Love then eked out a close victory, and won reelection in 2016, before losing another nail-biter to then-Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams.
Her voice was still deservedly welcome in the national media, as she appeared often on CNN and The View, showing the world that young Black women had something to say that wasn’t the Democratic Party line.
One person she never won the respect of was Donald Trump. As president, Trump could never stop talking, often in vulgar language, about how much he dislikes immigrants in general and people from Haiti — homeland of both of Love’s parents — in particular.
Love rightly stood up for her heritage and courageously called out a president of her own party for his cruelty. She made public her decision not to vote for Trump in 2016 (though she never said who she did vote for) after the vile recording of Trump bragging about his sexual abuse of women became public.
Other Utah Republicans have been rightly quick to take to social media in praise of Love and her accomplishments. Though it is questionable whether someone of her heritage, honesty and independence could get elected in today’s Trump-centric Republican Party.
And that’s too bad, because the story of Love and her family — her parents’ migration to New York in the 1970s, their hard work and devotion to family, her own rapid succession of accomplishments — is the very image of the American Dream.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
