Katrina Pierson is a self-made woman.   Last Fall during the 2010 midterm elections, her dogged ground efforts in Dallas County, Texas, shook the Democratic Party there as she got out the vote and helped to take back 29 seats for Republicans in the Texas Legislature.  She did so, working one block at a time, using voter lists, and training many Tea Partiers in the finer points of grassroots politics.  Katrina Pierson was one woman on a mission, one single, working mother dedicating herself to changing America.

Pierson has worked closely with Garland/Dallas area Mayor Ronald Jones in articulating the mission of Tea Party supporters, and making sure that communication with sitting elected leaders is candid and coordinated.

“She has a heart for the people.”  says Garland, Texas Mayor Ronald Jones.  “A heart for the people, for the country, and for the system.  She has the three critical elements of success we need in politics today:  She is competent, courageous and has consistent character.  That is why she has been able to make a state and national impact in getting out the vote.”

Women Tea Party leaders in Texas are just as complimentary about Katrina’s game-changing skills:

“Katrina has such a gift, a knowledge of how to work precinct by precinct.”  says NE Tarrant County Tea Party Board Leader Konni Burton.    “She started in her neighborhood in 2010 and then created ripples in other neighborhoods and ultimately connected so many people that we changed the landscape in our Texas legislature.”  says  Burton.

A longtime Texas political leader and elected official JoAnn Fleming has worked shoulder to shoulder with Pierson on the Texas Tea Party Caucus Advisory Board, working with Governor Rick Perry and the state legislature to make more conservative changes to state law.   Fleming describes Katrina Pierson as  “A woman with so much promise and with staying power because of her personal and professional integrity.”

Now Pierson’s political skill and passion is focused on the nation.  Pierson is the Executive Director of  WatchTheVote.Org and is funded privately to travel the country educating women and men about organizing the ground for 2012.  Her effort is one of hundreds joining forces in The Kitchen Cabinet to help conservative women have a bigger impact in the upcoming elections.  We interviewed her recently about her perspectives on the future of the country:

TKC:  Where are you from?

I started out as the daughter of a 15-year old white mother and a black father, and lifelong welfare generation in Texas.  I wasn’t really too interested in school or my future, but my grandmother convinced me that I needed to go to college.  I was the first and the only person in my family to graduate from high school.  It took me eight years to finish college because I was a single mother.  I worked hard and ultimately became a hospital administrator in Neuro-Science health care, here in Dallas.

TKC:  When did you become interested in the political process?

Through my life experience I realized that what was happening in our country was wrong on so many levels.  We have rights.  Liberties.  We have children to take care of and it’s getting harder to even take care of them.  So I decided to get out there and get educated on the issues.  The more I learned the more determined my engagement became.  So now I’m committed to helping other mothers learn what I have and to learn how to protect the futures of their children.  WatchTheVote.org is all about organizing grassroots, and teaching women AND men how to make a difference on the ground in elections.

TKC:  Did you ever feel hopeless in your situation?

I felt hopeless my whole young life.  Living in an environment of the “redistribution of wealth” there is no hope, there is no future, because there is no ambition.  When you grow up around people with no ambition, what is there to hope FOR? Everything is what it is, things stay the same.  There is no success, no happiness.  Until four or five years ago,  I felt that way.    It wasn’t long though before I recognized that I had the power to change my future and the ability to fight for everyone else to do the same.

I started out answering phones in a doctor’s office and I learned a lot about the business side of medicine and worked my way up into administration.

TKC:  Was their some pivotal event in your life that made you become passionate about changing America?

Post 9-11, people started to wonder what happened.  When suddenly you’re seeing something happen in your country that you usually only see on TV or in the movies…well that was just a huge eye opener.  Something was definitely wrong with the world I lived in.  Suddenly we are at war, and I felt beginning to infringe upon the liberties and rights of Americans,  overreacting in the name of safety.   The more I started to learn about Liberty, the more it became clear to me that in order to get our country back on track, we needed to get back to our founding principles.  The  more I read the Constitution, the more I realized that my passion was about liberty.  Not war,  not policymakers, but the inherent spirit of liberty in our country.

TKC:  What is YOUR solution for America:

Limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility,  hold people accountable.  If we do those things we’ll  be safer, we will have a growing economy, and our kids will be properly educated.

I  also think we look at our government, federal, state and local, and look at every department that has duplication and simply close them.  I think we give the states a year or two to get their acts together on education because the federal Department of Education needs to be closed.  I think that you cut corporate taxes to bring jobs back home from overseas.  Re-do the entire tax code to make it more “fair”,  for instance a flat tax perhaps, if it wasn’t too oppressive to small business owners.  Or, it could be a FAIR tax, where there is a sliding scale and those who earn over 2 or 3 million dollars will pay a slightly larger percentage of their earnings in taxes.  Put it on paper, have everyone look at it, and agree on it, and even vote on it.

Finally, we have to look at the immigration issue in the country.   We have to secure the border, and charge a fine to anyone who has entered the country illegally.   We definitely need to make it an option for families to pay or to work to meet the terms of the fine.  That’s what our country has always been about:  work.

TKC:  Who do you see as the likely GOP ticket for 2012?

I believe we’ll be looking at Romney/Bachmann.  Not necessarily in that order.  Perhaps Bachmann/TBD!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics, Sonja Eddings Brown, Uncategorized, Women Changing America by Sonja Eddings Brown, Sep 2, 2011