�鶹��ý

In this interview, Anne Neu Brindley explains the process she went through to become involved in politics, including her effort to seek inspiration in making the decision to run for office. She discusses how she interacts with other members of the legislature, as well as the importance of civility and finding consensus. This interview was conducted on July 29, 2021, by Claire Taylor, a BYU student majoring in political science.

Claire Taylor: For a little bit of context, could you talk about your background, where you grew up, went to school, et cetera?

Anne Neu Brindley: Sure. I grew up here in Minnesota. My family’s lived here for generations. When I went away to college, I had kind of a lengthy college career. I went up to the University of Colorado in Boulder my freshman year and was terribly, terribly homesick. So I came home and went to just a really small, tiny private Lutheran college about an hour and a half from home my sophomore year. And while I was there, I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And my good bishop said, “Anne, there is nothing here for you,” and encouraged me to go to BYU. So my junior year I went out to BYU and then spent several years there and graduated from BYU.

Claire Taylor: And so what led you to the church?

Anne Neu Brindley: Classic, right? I dated a member of the church in high school. I was a very strong Christian, and I was certainly strong in my faith in Jesus Christ. And so I spent my freshman year of college really deciding, “OK, I’m gonna show him why this is wrong, why it’s not right, and convert him.” And clearly we see what happened. It didn’t work out that way.

Claire Taylor: When did you first become interested in politics?

Anne Neu Brindley: I think I’ve always been interested in politics, actually. In fact, this is so funny, I have a group of girlfriends who, when we were young, we kept these notebooks that were kind of like diaries amongst the five of us. And we would write little questions and responses when we were together when we had sleepovers and things like that. I was probably thirteen years old, and I was talking about politics, which I had no recollection of until a few years ago when we were looking through some of these notebooks and, of course, horribly embarrassed by much of it. But I read that, and I just had to laugh. I didn’t even realize it went back that far. But I grew up with just this fiercely patriotic mom who, you know, I mean she couldn’t hear the national anthem or honor veterans at an event without crying, and I sort of . . . I picked that up from her. And my dad was career navy, so again, just very patriotic, and I think that’s where a lot of it came from.

Claire Taylor: So what was the first office that you ever ran for or government job that you served in?

Anne Neu Brindley: The office that I’m serving in now, a state representative, is the first office that I’ve ever actually run for. I did serve on a local planning commission in my small town for a while, previous to that. But this is the only office that I’ve actually ever run for. I did work in politics. I worked on the campaign side of politics before I decided to run for office myself.

Claire Taylor: So what motivated you to transition from the campaign or that local planning committee to running to be a representative?

Anne Neu Brindley: So interestingly, years ago back in 2009, I had literally received a spam email on a training program for women in Republican politics, and the only reason it caught my eye is because it listed the founder as the mother of a friend of mine from high school. And so, I immediately messaged—you know, back then it was email. We weren’t texting. It wasn’t Facebook. I emailed this friend and said, “Oh, my goodness! Is this your mom? What is this?” And she said, “It is,” and they told me that I just had to do it. So they convinced me to do this program. I’d been a stay-at-home mom for a lot of years at that point and felt woefully inadequate to be in this kind of program. But they accepted me into the program. And that’s when it started. That’s when my political involvement really edged up.

And so, when I started this program––it’s called the Minnesota Excellence in Public Service program––simultaneously a dear friend of mine was serving on her local PTO board for her school. The president of the PTO was retired from the navy and retired airline pilot, and he decided that he was going to run for Congress. And so this friend of mine said, “Oh, well, I have a friend, Anne, who I’m sure would help you.” And I ended up running his campaign as the campaign manager that year. The district was held by Democrats for sixty-four years. It had been held by the same Democrat for thirty-four years. And we won and we defeated him. And this congressman served for just one term, but that was my entrance into working on the campaign side of politics. And then I spent several years in campaign management and running organizations. And through that, I continued to be engaged in Minnesota Excellence in Public Service and as a training program for women. I was really aware of all the statistics regarding women in politics and that so few women would run. Women would win at the same rate as men, but they weren’t running for office at the same rates as men.

And, on average, women needed to be asked to run seven times before they would finally pull the trigger and actually do it. And I just had a really strong belief that we need women’s voices at the table. We need diverse voices at the table. We’re just all better served when different people and different experiences are represented in elected office. So I knew that the seat that I now serve in was going to be vacated, and I just decided, “OK, I can’t be one of those women who waits to be asked. I’ve got to do it. I just need to step up and put my name on the ballot and do it.”

Claire Taylor: So focusing a bit more on the church side of things, did your faith play any role when you were running for office? Did that motivate you? Were there certain church teachings that made you think, “Yes, this is what I want to go for”?

Anne Neu Brindley: So I would say that there have been very few times in my life––I can probably identify them very clearly on one hand––but there are very few times in my life that I have felt incredibly clear direction from Heavenly Father and very clear promptings from the Holy Ghost. And one of those times was when I ran that first campaign for Congress in 2010. And my husband had had the same promptings and impressions, and I remember praying on my knees, and I sadly don’t always pray on my knees, but it was on my knees with a vocal prayer. And I just remember saying, “Heavenly Father, this can’t be right. This cannot be what you want me to do. Like, you need me to be a mom. This can’t be right.” And just over and over, the very, very clear impression: “Nope, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to do.”

And then we won, and I thought, “Well, I can’t believe that if Heavenly Father needed this man to become a congressman, and if he did, he certainly didn’t need me to get him there.” And so, I just really questioned for a number of years what that meant and why I was supposed to do that. But it certainly opened doors for me. And I continued in campaign management; I now serve on the board of Excellence in Public Service. I worked as the executive director for the campaign arm of the House Republicans, and I’d had all these experiences and doors open to me. But I always questioned like, “Why was I supposed to do that?” And then in 2013, my now-late husband was diagnosed with ALS, and immediately––I’d just recently had this conversation with a sister-in-law––and immediately we went, “OK, this is why I have needed all of this preparation to do all of these things, because now I’m going to have to support my family.” I mean, a diagnosis of ALS is terminal, and it’s not long-term. So, all of a sudden, the pieces came together, and it was like, “OK, now I understand why I was supposed to do this those years ago.”

And then interestingly, once again, my now-late husband, John, had been living with ALS for about three years, and I was serving as the executive director for the House Republicans on the campaign side, and I knew that my predecessor was no longer going to be filling the seat. And I talked to my husband about it, and I told John about it, and his ALS was very advanced. It was very difficult to understand him. His speech was very, very slurred. He was on a ventilator, and he said, “I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it.” And I thought, “Really, John? I can think of about a thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea.” But he said, “I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it.” And then, it was a week later he passed away, a week later he passed away. And again, it was just so very clear that: “OK, this is a door that has been opened that I am supposed to walk through.” Like it was just all so very clear.

I’m good friends with our stake patriarch, and he had come over in those days following John’s death, and I had talked to him about this. And he just looked at me like, “Are you kidding, Anne? You don’t know what you’re supposed to do with this? It’s very clear what you’re supposed to do with this.” And so that was in September of 2016, and then I ran in a special election in 2017. So it’s not necessarily specific church doctrines or positions that really compelled me to run. It was more just very, very clear direction from the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Father that “this is what you’re supposed to do.”

Claire Taylor: So maybe on a broader scale, what role do you think religion should play in politics?

Anne Neu Brindley: Well, that’s a good question. I think the overt role of religion and politics is just that I would certainly expect any representative of any religion in any party to be true to their faith and to whatever that means for them and how that plays out. I would hope that people would treat that very seriously and honor those personal testimonies, regardless of what faith is. I think in a broader sense, I think the role of politics, when it comes to religion, is to protect the free exercise thereof. Certainly, it’s our responsibility as elected officials to ensure that we are not infringing upon the rights of religious organizations and religious practices. But beyond that, I think, like I said, the role of religion and politics is just that of individual representatives being true to their faith and making sure that they’re not doing things that are outside the bounds of their faith.

Claire Taylor: Did your religious beliefs play a role in the political party that you affiliate with?

Anne Neu Brindley: I don’t know that my religious beliefs play a role in my political party. Now interestingly, like I said, I happen to be a Republican. I’m pretty conservative. And it’s interesting, if anything, there are sort of very religious folks who might be uncomfortable with my faith and with our faith and church. There might be, and certainly, I’ve had little comments here and there from folks. In my Republican House caucus, fortunately, I think it’s pretty neat when we have folks of different faiths. In fact, I have a staffer who is very religiously Jewish, and I have great conversations, ’cause we’re sort of the lone wolves, and we have wonderful conversations about religion, and I really enjoy that. But, in my caucus, there’s a very Christian foundation, and so I think my faith and our religion fits right in with that, and everyone’s very respectful of that.

Claire Taylor: So do you think that Latter-day Saints can be members of different political parties and still believe in the same gospel that you do?

Anne Neu Brindley: Absolutely, I do. Yes. I mean, the answer is yes, absolutely. We can all see things a little bit differently. And certainly, I have incredibly faithful friends who are Democrats, and they are wonderful, good, God-loving people with incredible testimonies of the gospel and of our Savior. There’s just no question that we can share the same faith and still view things differently on how the world should be run.

Claire Taylor: All right, has your approach to particular policy issues been affected by your faith? Are there certain areas that there’s just a really high correlation between your religious values and your political preferences or opinion?

Anne Neu Brindley: Yes. I would say that that is most true for me when it comes to issues surrounding the LGBTQ community and issues of gender. So, for example, we had a bill come before us a few years ago on conversion therapy, banning conversion therapy. And fortunately, I feel so blessed and I’m so grateful that we belong to a church that is opposed to conversion therapy—that we don’t see that as a good tool, which I, again, I just feel so grateful for that and blessed by that. At the same time, the legislation that was proposed would have offered no religious protections. So, say a bishop is just having a conversation with someone, and it was interpreted as conversion therapy; there could be pretty significant ramifications there. And also the concept of agency and that we get to make choices in this life. And the legislation was really far-reaching that it banned all conversion therapy. And I talked to the advocates, and I said, “You know, if this was limited to kids, and if there were religion protections, I would 100 percent support what you’re doing with this. But adults who want to seek this have the right to choose that. They can choose what they want to do if that is of interest to them.” The hearings that we had on that bill were the most difficult hearings I’ve ever experienced in the legislature. Just the stories that were shared, and it was incredibly difficult.

Claire Taylor: Have you ever encountered a conflict between what your own faith is and what your constituents might want from you?

Anne Neu Brindley: That is an interesting question. I wouldn’t say that I’ve had conflict necessarily, but I probably have much softer, more nuanced views when it comes to racial issues, I would say. I find that there are folks in my party and some of my constituents—I represent a pretty conservative district—I find that there are folks who take a really hard line on, particularly, all of the racial issues today. And not that they want to support racism or racist ideas in any way, but they also take a very hard line on even, maybe, digging in and understanding some different perspectives, whereas I feel like I’m much more open to understanding different perspectives, and I actually meet with a small group of Republicans pretty regularly to talk about these racial issues and how we can, sort of, be a force for change and, maybe, a softening of hearts, a bit, on this so that we can make real changes. And it’s difficult because it is so nuanced. I mean, my colleagues and I who would like to make real changes and really affect the Black community and people of color and Indigenous people and have a positive change. We get very frustrated by the proposals from the other side of the aisle that really feel like nonsense to us. You know, tens of millions of dollars going to arts programs or things like this, and we’re saying, “Well, we’re only graduating 50 percent of students of color in Minnesota. We have the worst disparity in the entire country. It’s just atrocious, and we’re talking about these arts programs. Can we talk about real changes that we need to make in schools so we’re graduating kids?” ’Cause that’s really the great equalizer is education and helping kids be successful from that early age.

So I would say that’s, maybe, an issue that I think my faith guides that. Certainly, I don’t think there’s any place in our faith and in our church for any level of racism. There’s clearly no place in the gospel of Jesus Christ for treating anyone as less than or different or as less worthy. And I also think that there is every place in the gospel to seek to lift and help and work with others to help everyone be the most successful that they can be and have a productive, fulfilling life. If we can affect that and help people to do that, I think we have a charge to do that.

Claire Taylor: So do you believe that incivility in politics and partisan polarization are problems today or that they’ve increased recently, and, if so, what are ways that you think we can address it?

Anne Neu Brindley: So yes and no. This is a complicated answer. And like I said, I’ve been around politics and in the world of politics for over twenty years and serving as an elected official now for four of those years, a little over four years. What I think we see in politics are more extremes. However, I would also say we’ve also always had extremes. The difference now, of course, is in the world of social media, everyone knows everything and information spreads so quickly that that sometimes has a negative impact. What I would say, however, is that the public generally misses—you know, they don’t have a bird’s eye view of all the things that are happening in the legislature. And certainly, like I said, I can be as political and brash, and I can give a real barn burner of a speech on the House floor, but then what people don’t see is me go out in the rotunda and share snacks with my Democratic colleagues and talk about our kids and talk about those issues that we really care about. I served on the subcommittee for homelessness this year, and I have a really great relationship with the Democratic chair of that committee, and we both feel really strongly about finding solutions to the problem of homelessness. But that doesn’t mean we always approach it exactly the same way, and we don’t always see the same solutions, but we have great conversations about how we might be able to move forward. And so I think that what the public sees is the very most contentious parts of politics, whereas the vast majority of what we do is bipartisan. We agree on most of it, and it’s not contentious, but that’s just not what the media reports. It’s not what we’re putting on social media. And so I think a lot of that polarization comes through all this instant communication and just an amplifying those most polarizing parts of what we do.

And I don’t know what the solution is, I really don’t. Social media might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to politics. We see people get so angry and worked up in ways that are just not good, they’re not helpful, they’re not beneficial. We just do better when we can disagree and still be friends. We don’t have to agree to respect people and to have good, positive relationships with them.

Claire Taylor: Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t discussed yet?

Anne Neu Brindley: I think the intersection of politics and faith is really interesting. And I know, for me, politics can be really dark and icky, and I mean, let’s face it, politics and politicians have a bad rap. And it’s easy sometimes to get sucked into some of that negativity and just the yuckier side of politics; it’s easy to get sucked into that. And I know, for me, I have to work really hard to not become a part of that. And like I said, sometimes I’m better at it than others. But I find that, for me, when it comes to my faith, I really have to nurture my faith and try very hard to live close to the Spirit so that I don’t fall into the darker side of politics. I feel like I have to work even harder to feel close to the Spirit and do the things that I’m supposed to do to avoid those things, because it’s just all around all the time. And so to avoid it takes some work and takes some effort. But I’m grateful for my testimony and my membership in the church and the gospel and the organization and the structure of the church that gives us so many opportunities to do that and to build a little bit of a wall of protection around ourselves to do that.