Rep. Jackie Speier on surviving Jonestown, retirement : “While you look demise within the eye, you aren’t afraid anymore”

After spending over a decade in Congress, Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, might be retiring. She is one in all 55 lawmakers who determined to not run for re-election. 

However Speier’s highway to Washington started in 1978 on a abandoned airstrip in Guyana the place she lay wounded after being shot 5 instances. 

Speier was then a 28-year-old congressional staffer on a fact-finding mission along with her boss, California Rep. Leo Ryan, on the Individuals’s Temple compound of cult chief Jim Jones. 

After the go to, they sought to return dwelling however attackers dispatched by the cult leaders assassinated Ryan and shot Speier a number of instances. 

For 22 hours, she lay on the bottom bleeding and damage — afraid that she would by no means see her household once more. 

“Many people thought we have been simply going to die there. I used to be pondering that you recognize, nobody would ever know. My household would by no means know what occurred to me,” she mentioned. 

Speier can be air rescued and saved. The incident would result in an act of mass suicide in Jonestown by which 918 individuals, together with youngsters, would die.  

Speier mentioned surviving the ambush has outlined her life and given her the energy she wanted to combat. 

“It is knowledgeable every little thing I’ve finished. I imply, it is made me right into a fighter and to not take no for a solution,” she mentioned. 

Speier’s political profession would totally take off shortly after the ambush and in 2008 she gained Ryan’s previous congressional seat.  

Eric Ryan, a former staffer to Speier, mentioned that her combating spirit has helped her champion laws together with introducing the “I’m Vanessa Guillén Act,” named for the Fort Hood soldier who had reported sexual harassment earlier than she was murdered by a fellow soldier, and serving to advocate for feminine congressional staffers who skilled sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. 

“She sees one thing fallacious and feels a compulsion and have to do one thing about it,” Ryan mentioned. 

Republicans have bristled at a few of Speier’s different concepts and techniques. She used her maiden ground speech to name for the return of American troops from Iraq.  

Speier was additionally one of many first representatives to advocate the usage of the twenty fifth Modification to the U.S. Structure to take away President Trump from workplace in 2017 after his response to the White nationalist rally in Charlottesville. 

She has come a good distance from dealing with demise on that airstrip in Guyana. However she mentioned surviving the incident gave her a second probability to reside. 

“Everybody appears at Guyana as this horrific — sure, it was horrific. However my God, I had a second probability at life. And it is made me fearless, which I most likely wouldn’t have been had I not had that have. I imply, once you look demise within the eye, you aren’t afraid anymore,” she mentioned. 

Speier mentioned that after she leaves Capitol Hill, she plans to spend time along with her household and stay full-time in California. Her ultimate day in workplace is Jan. 2.  

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