Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [78]
“You are not responsible,” I planned to tell Sarah Palin. “But you are irresponsible.”
I don’t know how she would have responded to me. She may have been insulted. She may have been open to discussion. She may have said things that would resonate with me. As it turned out, she never called.
In the years before the shooting, Gabby knew politics often required forceful language and scrappy interactions. She was a policy wonk, but she was also a woman who spoke frankly and fearlessly. Many found her refreshing. Others were put off by her.
When she got to Washington, Gabby didn’t mind taking on the federal government. She’d go on radio and TV and make pointed statements. She explained to NPR that she represents one of the longest U.S./Mexico border districts in the United States. “The federal government has essentially failed the people of Arizona,” she said. “We have over twice the number of illegal entrants as California, Texas, and New Mexico combined. Yet the federal government has not reimbursed Arizona for the costs of health care, for the costs of our schools, for the costs of first responders and law enforcement.”
She fought over issues that people outside border states didn’t even know existed. For instance, a lack of cell-phone service plagues sparsely populated areas of Gabby’s district near the border with Mexico. When a rancher went missing in 2010, poor coverage made it impossible for anyone to call law-enforcement agencies for help. The rancher was found dead, allegedly murdered by a border-crossing smuggler.
“This murder is the latest in a disturbing trend of home invasions, burglaries, assaults and other lawless activities along the international border,” Gabby wrote in a letter to Lowell McAdam, president of Verizon Wireless. Ranchers carry cell phones but have no service, she wrote, leaving them “isolated and endangered when they encounter drug- and people-smugglers on their lands . . .
“I am aware that Verizon has portable cell phone towers that can be located in areas where coverage is inadequate or unavailable. These towers were installed in Arizona to provide critical security during the most recent presidential campaign. There is a need to do so again to provide security to the families who are under fire from smugglers in Southern Arizona . . . I look forward to your earliest response and the support I am sure you will want to provide.” (McAdam promised to study Gabby’s request, as did the president of AT&T. Since the shooting, Gabby’s staffers have remained on the case.)
Gabby always had a pile of issues such as this on her plate, and she was a workaholic. I used to say if she was awake, she was working.
Each week, she was asked to make appearances at about fifty meetings or events, and she’d try to accommodate as many as she could. She had trouble saying no, especially if it involved constituents, and her schedule was overwhelming. Her staff kept track of all the numbers. In 2009, for instance, she appeared at 530 events and meetings in Washington and 216 in Arizona. On top of that, she also attended 231 “private events,” usually get-togethers with community leaders and constituents. Her staff even kept track of her days with me on their color-coded calendar. I had my own color: purple. The records show Gabby spent fewer than a hundred days with me in 2009, mostly in Arizona or Washington. She came to Houston for just a dozen of those days.
Gabby’s weekly trips back and forth between Washington and her district were not easy. She’d wake up at 5:00 a.m. in Arizona, catch a 7:00 flight to Dallas, where she’d connect to a Washington, D.C., flight. Door-to-door it took her eight to nine hours. She preferred a window seat on early morning flights so she could lean against the window and catch a few minutes of sleep. On afternoon flights, she wanted the aisle so she’d have more room to work. She could spend a whole flight composing e-mails, which