ASHE IN AMERICA
— OPINION
standwithallison.com
Governance is about decision rights.
“…the sovereign will of the citizens — freely expressed at the ballot box and formalized by the competent electoral authorities — constitutes the sole foundation of the legitimacy of public power.” — US State Department, Shield of the Americas.
In September, I received a phone call from an old friend asking me to chat with Allison Madrigal (standwithallison.com), independent candidate running for House District 38.
The pitch interested me.
It was post-partisan. It was solutions-oriented. It was refreshing.
While I believe elections are fake, I have long said that I believe they are our most important narrative battlefield for reclaiming American decision rights for the people. That’s why I still vote — why I believe it’s still an important vehicle for change in the greatest country in the history of earth.
So I decided to do the interview. The full discussion is on my substack (asheinameri ca.substack.com), and edited for length below.
***
How did you decide to get into this race?
“I ran an anti-trafficking organization, started it, and ran it for 11 years. And it was last July that the Lord spoke very clearly to me to get everything off my plate because he had something new for me. It took me about six months to bring in new leadership for Rescue America. I got a call one evening in March and the caller said, ‘Hey, I’d like you to pray about something.” … I was like, okay, Lord. If you want me to do this, you’re going to have to show me.
A week or two after that call, I remembered I was registered unaffiliated. When I moved here in 2021 for Rescue America, when I was registering to vote, I was going to check Republican, but the Holy Spirit said, ‘Stop, unaffiliated. It’s strategic.’ I didn’t even really remember that until I was considering running.”
It was too late to change your registration anyway… Would you have changed it to Republican if you could?
“The first week and a half, when I was planning to run but didn’t remember that I was unaffiliated, there was this yucky feeling nagging at me. And I felt, “Okay, this is not the Lord. This is bad. The minute that I remember, I was registered unaffiliated, that feeling went completely away. I asked the Lord, ‘What is that? And He responded, ‘Now you know that you’re not under a political spirit.’ And I literally felt it in my physical body. I later learned that 46.8% of HD38 are registered unaffiliated. So no, I would not have changed.”
The party labels definitely come with baggage in Colorado. Tell me about your platform.
“I started Rescue America in 2014. The Lord called me out of corporate America, opened my eyes to trafficking in America, and then gave me everything to start a rescue hotline. Rescue America is a 24×7 hotline that gets survivors, victims, out of their situation and places them in long-term safe homes…
Working with trafficking victims for the last 11 years, there’s so much I learned. You think you understand an issue until you start working with the victims. Getting to the cause and bringing in redemptive solutions in order to heal a trafficking victim is a journey. I believe they’re one of the hardest populations to heal — you’ve got to heal their mind, their body, their spirit. It has to be a trifecta, right?”
Those same core issues with trafficking branch into homelessness and mental health and addiction, don’t they?
“Every facet of society. Getting to the redemptive solutions on all these interrelated issues is the foundation of my platform because of my work with Rescue America… What I’ve learned in trafficking, and how it relates to the whole of society, refocuses solutions on how we give people a hand up and not a hand out.”
Right now it’s a system of systems with the NGOs at the center…
“Exactly. You have to look at the NGOs. Are they producing outputs or outcomes? Are they creating sustainable life change with what they do? There’s a lot of organizations and, yes, there are ones that are corrupt, but there’s also a lot of organizations doing good work. But even then, they’re not creating life change. So what are we actually funding?
The one thing running unaffiliated, my only commitment is to do what the Lord asked me to do. I don’t care if they kick me out. I’m not taking funding from any of them, and I’m not sold out to anybody… I’m sold out to the Lord.”
What does representation mean to you?
“I can promise I am going to tell you the truth. I’m going to be available to listen. I will be available to hear the people and listen to them and, where I can, take those issues to the legislature and fight for their outcomes. If I can promise you anything, this is what I can and will promise you: I will tell you the truth. I will tell you what’s going on in the legislature. I will not sugarcoat anything. I will say it as is.”
***
I am not in HD38, cannot vote for Ms. Madrigal. But I wish I could, and I wish we had more post-partisan, solutions-oriented candidates running for office throughout the state.
Governance is about decision rights. We should always be intentional in handing those out.
Read the full interview at asheinamerica.substack.com.
Ashe Epp is a local writer, host, and activist. Find all her work at linktree.com/asheinamerica.
