ANYONE WHO THINKS the face of the GOP sisterhood belongs to pro-choice moderates like Maine senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins should take a look at another Republican woman from the Northeast: Melissa Hart. The two-term Pennsylvania congresswoman has a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and consistently votes with the conservative wing of her party on an array of issues. For starters, she’s staunchly pro-life. In 2001 she cosponsored anti-cloning legislation and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, signed into law by President Bush last summer, which made killing a baby born alive during a botched abortion a crime. “Congresswoman Hart has been an articulate and vigorous defender of unborn children,” says National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson.
This spring Hart became the prime sponsor of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, or “Laci and Conner’s Law.” The bill, which has passed in the House twice but failed in the Senate, would establish legal consequences if an unborn child is injured or killed as a result of violence against its mother. It’s been met with plenty of opposition from NARAL Pro-Choice America, who reject the bill on the grounds that it gives rights to a fetus. “Here it’s a matter of a woman who has made a decision to carry her child to term,” Hart says. “So there should be two crimes.”
Lower taxes are also at the top of her list. She affectionately refers to a small business owner in her district north of Pittsburgh, whom she’s met a few times on walking tours. “He’s a sparky guy in New Castle, an immigrant, and a lot of his employees are immigrants.” On his employees’ paychecks he juxtaposes their net pay with the total amount in taxes, Social Security, and Medicare withheld and asks them if they think they and their families benefit enough every week to justify the amount confiscated by the government. “When people become upset about how much money is taken,” it’s more likely “that we’ll have better tax policy,” she explains. “This guy is sharp.”
Hart says her interest in politics was sparked in family debates around the dinner table. “I became kind of a news hound,” she says. The granddaughter of Italian immigrants on her mother’s side and two coal miner grandfathers, she can relate to a hard day’s work. She grew up in blue collar Allegheny County and worked her way through Washington and Jefferson College and the University of Pittsburgh Law School.
At Washington and Jefferson, she was one of the founding members of the College Republicans’ Club and started volunteering for campaigns, including the 1982 race of one of her political role models, former Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh. “He stood for his principles…during tough economic times, when steel mills were closing and people were unhappy,” she says. “He was always honest and forthright.”
Before her career in politics took off, Hart practiced law and worked in real estate in west Pennsylvania. In 1990, when she was 28, she ran her first campaign for the state senate against a long-term Democratic delegate who was considered unbeatable. “With no name recognition and no money,” Hart recalls walking door to door with Senator Rick Santorum, who was then running for the House, shaking thousands of hands. Both won.
She ran for Congress 10 years later on the theme of “people, not politics,” and won easily in her working class, big-labor district, becoming the first Republican woman from Pennsylvania to be elected to the House. “The people love her because she’s got a lot of credibility. She’s really passionate and she’s not just going through the motions,” says Mildred Webber, deputy chief of staff to Missouri’s Roy Blunt, the House majority whip. “She’s one of the folks, part of the community. She won by telling the story.”
When Hart arrived in Washington, her politics turned heads. Her freshman year she was tapped by Blunt to join the Republican whip team. “She’s so well-spoken,” says Webber. “[Congressman Blunt] thinks so highly of her, all the members do.”
When she isn’t on the Hill, Hart tries to go home to her district as much as possible. She isn’t married and doesn’t have children, so during her visits she takes walking tours, often through the mills, plays golf, and cooks big meals for her family and friends.
Asked when she will have succeeded, Hart pauses and explains. “People don’t have access to information they should get. I want people to be more aware of things like federal entitlements that need reforming and what kinds of policies create a healthy environment for entrepreneurs.”
Hart says she doesn’t see herself growing old in Congress. Although she says she doesn’t have any immediate plans to change jobs, she wants to do something to “move the country forward. If that takes me somewhere besides the House, that’s fine.”
Rachel DiCarlo is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
