EMILY's List
Mary Jo Kilroy rolls up her sleeves for American families
By Jen Bluestein on 07/21/2010 @ 04:12 PM
Last night, I had the privilege of spending some time with Cong. Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), a true progressive leader from Ohio. I couldn’t believe I was getting the opportunity to talk to Mary Jo the night before her work on financial reform became law. Mary Jo was one of only two freshman on the conference committee, and she worked hard to write this bill and get it passed. But you know what? She wasn’t resting on her laurels. She was already talking about what she was going to do next, what more needed to be done for American families.
But then again, Mary Jo takes on big challenges and just keeps going. Mary Jo Kilroy put herself through college and law school. She took back a House seat that had been in Republican hands since 1967. She stayed doggedly on one of AIG’s subsidiaries when they tried to avoid doing the right thing to help prevent more Ohioans from losing their homes. Kilroy is a roll-up-her-sleeves woman who gets things done and she must be feeling so much pride today as President Obama signs the financial reform bill whose passage she worked so hard for, knowing that her work will help American families to thrive far into the future.
And how strange to consider that at that very same moment, her former bank lobbyist opponent Steve Stivers was in DC, collecting big dollar checks at an event hosted by the banking industry. Talk about a tin ear for Americans’ lives. On the day that Kilroy’s hard work to protect Americans from the excesses and greed of some in the banking industry becomes law, Steve Stivers is breaking bread with those same banking industry lackeys. I shudder to imagine what he’s promising them. Less regulation? More opportunity to once again risk the stability of American families through predatory practices and unfettered greed?
I am always so proud of the pro-choice Democratic women elected with EMILY’s List support. But today, I am particularly proud to be a part of Mary Jo Kilroy’s movement to protect American families from corporate greed. In my mind’s eye, I imagine Steve Stivers and his bank lobbyist cronies, scheming away as they turn in their checks, rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of turning back the clock and once again running roughshod over Americans’ prosperity and economic security. But then I see Mary Jo Kilroy. She’s ready. She’s determined. And she’s not going to let them.
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