Running With An Ambush*

We interviewed Shireen Ghorbani back in the green days of this newsletter, when it was still focused solely on female first-time candidates running for office in 2018. What struck us about Shireen was not just her gumption (first-time candidate, female, running as a Democrat for the House of Reps, in Utah, against a long-time GOP incumbent), which was substantial, but also her dedication to her adopted state, her relentlessly up-beat attitude and yeah, her sass. We don’t mean sass like, she’s snarky or cutting. Rather, Shireen is the type of politician who DJs Salt Lake City PRIDE. In a tee-shirt that says “conversion therapy is a sin.” Yep, she did that.

She lost that race, though it was closer than anyone thought given the erm, interesting districting in Utah. However a Democrat (Rep. Ben McAdams) DID win an upset in Utah, and the political realm shifted. Shireen found herself running for SL County Mayor (another close one) and ultimately landed herself a seat on the Salt Lake County Council. So, it’s been a year. We thought we’d catch up over a cup of coffee in Salt Lake City and talk about women, Utah, local government, motivation, joy and reasons to be grateful even in less-than-ideal outcomes. All things we consider to be important to the fabric of this country, right?

*Another thing we learned? An ambush is the collective noun for tigers, and the name of Shireen’s badass group chat.

**This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ON WHAT EXACTLY THE HECK (FOR THE UTAHNS) HAPPENED LAST YEAR

I was so incredibly proud of what we were able to do in the Second District. It was a District that had not moved an inch in terms of the end result. It was pretty consistently at 33%, the Democrat always came in at 33%. I was able to move it to almost 39%. We knocked on 90,000 doors. We raised just shy of half a million dollars. And in Salt Lake County, where I live, we were able to attain 67% of the vote, which is also a really important lesson in the cruelty of gerrymandering, because in our deepest quadrant of Salt Lake County we don't have political representation that reflects that.

But we were able to send one Democrat to Congress, so that opened up a series of opportunities. When that race was certified the Salt Lake County Mayor's position opened and I decided to run in large part because of the stories that I heard at the doors all across this county -- about health care, policing, concerns about criminal justice, roads and infrastructure. It was funny, when I was running, I would knock on a lot of doors and ask people about health care, or what they think about the federal government, and they would say, look at this stop sign… politics is local.

It was a great opportunity, it's a huge span of influence and around issues I really care about. I came within 77 votes. So now I'm on the Salt Lake County Council and I represent all of Salt Lake County, which is a 1.3 million, about, and a budget of $1.5 billion. I'm incredibly excited to be in that position. And it's a place where I think we have both the opportunity to show what really good collaborative governance looks like, and it's a place where we can send clear messages about who it is that we are and what we stand for.

ON ELECTION NIGHT, AND FLIPPING DISAPPOINTMENT INTO OPPORTUNITY

I was really excited about Adrew Gillum, I was really excited about Stacy Abrams. I mean that was a heavy lift, I get it 'cause that's what I was doing too. To see those individuals not be able to break through was disappointing, but of course then just like win after win after win across the county, right as polls were closing. I knew that we had an uphill battle, that it was not likely going to pan out. We came closer than anyone's come, and with more fair boundaries I think that we would have better representation. But in that moment I felt so proud. I was so happy and truly I had a lot of fun running. I was incredibly excited. I also had this kind of moment where I thought, it's going to be hard to figure out what I do next.

ON GETTING TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS

When I first decided to run [for Congress] I met with a lot of local leaders, people who'd run before, and then I sat down with a former mayor of Salt Lake City, Ralph Becker. And one of the things that he said to me and has really stuck with me was, when you run for office you get to know your community in a way that people just don't get to. You don't have any reason to unless you're campaigning for someone or you know, trying to get glass recycling in your community, to go door to door to door and talk to your neighbors. And for me, my neighbors in this context stretched from Farmington, Utah, which is about 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City, all the way down to the edge of Lake Powell, which is a 5-1/2 hour drive south. I knocked on doors in communities that have potentially never seen a Congressional candidate. People were just like, you're running for what? Why are you here? People tell you things that you just wouldn't anticipate, but that reinforced my notion of Utahns as people, as being fundamentally decent, of wanting a government that reflects that, of being frustrated with what's happening in Washington, all of those feelings that I was having. Even if they were strong Republicans we shared a lot of common ground.

Going door to door here, as a person with the name Shireen Ghorbani, an Iranian American woman, I was kind of terrified.

SHIREEN GHORBANI

ON MORMONS AND ON GOING DOOR TO DOOR AS SHIR-EEN GOR-BANI

One of the reasons why I'm proud to represent Salt Lake County and I am absolutely very proud to be a Utahan, is that I am certain that Utah is different. I grew up in North Dakota, a place that's seen a similar political swing to Utah. There was a time not all that long ago when we had Democrat senators, and we've had a Governor that was beloved. And when you're out talking to people here, the issue of immigration is a great place to look at how Utah is just fundamentally different than other Red States.

Going door to door here, as a person with the name Shireen Ghorbani, an Iranian American woman, I was kind of terrified. But standing on doorsteps in Davis County, interacting with long time Utahans, a large demographic of older white individuals, my absolute faith in this state was restored talking to them about specifically what's happening in our border and wanting to see immigration reform. Certainly everyone wants legal solutions to what's happening. But to be imbedded in a culture that has a very clear historical tie to what it means to be persecuted for your faith, and to be chased out of places that were your home, is a connection that I think makes the bridge to empathy a lot easier to build and a lot shorter for many individuals than in other political contexts.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has some really interesting ties to a more progressive agenda. That is a community that consistently shows up for the people in need, prioritizes the welfare of the individuals in the community. And if you look at some of the statements the church has made around immigration or even environmental stewardship there's a lot of really good and interesting, and I know it's ineffable but I think it's a window into a core set of values that allows us to have conversations about what we really should be doing. I think if we could maybe tone down Fox News or turn off conservative radio… I think if we could have those conversations in earnest and we could solve some of the problems here around teacher pay, around pay equity, around access to health care.

ON WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT

It's taken me, a person who's studied it extensively, time to really get caught up on the implications of all of the aspects of local governance, and the opportunities. And I think a part of the lack, or the difficulty around engagement is not only do we not have people covering it but we're also not educating people about basic stuff. And the county government I think has a long way to go on educating people about what's happening at the county.

First of all, I use Instagram a lot. It's been interesting because I frequently do these little polls where I say: what do you want to know, what are the issues you're concerned about, what are you trying to figure out? And almost always, I get a number of responses that say, “I want to know how to engage.” So I'm going to start doing this basic civics education in the Instagram stories because almost 500 people watch them. That's not a lot, but it's young people, it's community members, it's fascinating. That is something that I'm hoping to grow and continue to use as an education-based platform so that people get in concrete steps what they can do to engage. Our State Legislature did undermine the will of the voters on Medicaid expansion and I'm going to make a point of that every week if I have to. But I'm continuing to put that message out there and try to create pathways for people to be informed and engaged.

I think there's so much to be said for local government not having the same fundamentally broken interests as our federal government does. And so we can, we can provide access to healthcare, we can provide access to low cost exams. We can do so much at the local level.

ON HOW TO PRIORITIZE ALL THE THINGS

The way I've prioritized the work that I'm interested in doing is rooted in the stories that I hear in the community. Healthcare is my biggest priority. More families are more directly impacted by a working healthcare system than anything else. Teacher pay, and what's happening in our schools, those are the stories that I hear from community members on a regular basis. Thinking about immigration, the stories that I heard at the doors when I was running for Congress, that's what drives me. I’m informed by the need that I see and hear in our community.

ON POWER AND PARTY

I'm happy to take the “progressive” label, because it reflects the work that I'm interested in doing, which is forefronting human dignity, understanding that there are difficult decisions that need to be made. We obviously aren't going to meet everyone's needs all of the time but I think that we can do so much more if we could fix some of the things that are really broken in our political system.

In terms of actually sitting at the council, I think a lot about power. Yesterday I introduced a resolution on immigration and the room was packed, the room is almost always empty. A number of individuals came forward, shared their stories and I just sat there with tears in my eyes, on the verge of just weeping. A woman told her father's story of escaping from Nazi Germany, a number of members of the Latinx community talked about what they're experiencing and facing daily. Those stories are part of the public record because we had this conversation and that is a huge honor and responsibility that I carry, being on the other side of that table. How do I create that space? What do we witness, what's happening in our community? That was really powerful and really reinforces the ethic that I bring to representation. So that's one side of it.

On the other side of it, more political, as an elected Democrat, it's time to change the way that we think about Democrats, and think about who is representing us and who actually fits our values and the things that we want to see. That's where I'm so excited to use my platform to help point a little attention toward other candidates, on other women in particular, who have stepped up in this election cycle and are running for city council seats all over this state, who are engaging and putting themselves out there to say, “we want to work on good governance, we want to work on transparency, we want you to have a participatory hand in the budgets that we are putting together for our city to talk in concrete ways about how we want our communities to be policed.” We're having different conversations on all of these issues because different people are getting seats at the table.

ON CROSSING THE THEORETICAL AISLE AND ON ENGAGING WITH THE "ENEMY"

I feel like once I became an elected, the political lines mean less to me. I have a lot of things that I share in common with my Republican colleagues on the County Council, like the fact that we were able to -- with minor changes -- pass a resolution about immigration unanimously is a pretty big example of that. So we can find a ton of common ground. The thing that's more important to me is thinking about it from my role of responsibility in terms of representation. As issues flare up I'll get a flood of emails. I'm never thinking, “that's clearly a Democrat, or that's clearly a Republican.” I'm thinking, how do I get the information, how do I understand the big picture, how do I go out there, meet them, engage? I don't think it serves me well to be sort of ingrained in that political identity. On the other side, I see my fellow Democrats in the State Legislature and across different elected roles really advancing an agenda that I think is important for the people of Utah so I’m going to continue to talk about that.

There are some topics where I feel like if we start at the end we've missed the opportunity to have a conversation. I'm really truly interested in where people develop their beliefs and what their priorities are. I think the issue of abortion is one that's particularly in focus right now. When I talk to individuals who perhaps their defining political identity is being pro-life, there are many things about that position that connect with me. I believe that people should have a quality of life. I believe that there is a good sound reason that we would want to be working towards a future where people don't have to make the choice of how they get abortion. And there are two ways that we can do that, and they are education and access to healthcare. And when I'm able to have that conversation and say, “hey, we might have very different ideas about the end of this conversation, but I want you to know that every single time when I have been out there in the community, when I have the opportunity at the Council to talk about what we're investing in, or for community resources into education and healthcare, you will find me at the table every time advocating for those issues. I want the same thing that you want. But we have tied everything to this one issue that is way too late in the process to do anything about it.”

I think that patience is tied to my privilege. I come from a place where I've had a lot of opportunities, I have had a lot of opportunities to really have that conversation in a way that doesn't feel like it insults my humanity. That's rooted in the privilege completely. And I think, if you are really serious about that issue, I would love for us to be investing in the 3,000 kids that are in foster care here in Utah. That's a priority for me. Those are lives. You want to talk about access to childcare so that people can have those babies, I am here for that. So I think for me it has to be like, okay, kind of back to this idea like how are we educating, how are we engaging and can I quiet my own perceptions about something to hear where people are saying?

ON FINDING MORE JOY, MORE ENERGY, MORE MOTIVATION

This is something that I am constantly working on to create more space for, but I have really good friends. Two weeks after I got on the County Council I was like, we're throwing a party. And people were like, why are you throwing a party for us? And I was like, “because does everyone remember two years ago?” I love to have my house filled with good food and company and laughter and my husband plays guitar and a room full of people singing their guts out is the best. Some of my friends, very close friends, are really not political, and it's great and it's soul filling, and it's a mental health priority to find more time for that, because it absolutely lifts me up. And then I think the other side of it is it’s an enormous privilege to have a husband who is an unrelenting champion of the work that I'm doing and creating space for. Taking care of our son a lot of evenings, managing a lot of the household duties so that I'm able to be out there in the community constantly. Without that, I wouldn't be able to do this.

But… I also find joy in finding myself in communities that have always been important to me. For example, I got to DJ Pride again last week. It was so fun. But you know, when our State fails to ban conversion therapy you can bet I'm going to, in a fit of rage, order a shirt that says, "Conversation Therapy is a Sin," and wear it through the streets of Salt Lake City. We lose too many kids to suicide. We can change that and I'm here to change that because those kids bring value and I want them to live long lives. I'm not going to back down from that. I think it’s in finding those places where I say, “I'm here for this because I love you and just going all the way on it.”

ON BUT ALSO RAGE

I think back to what keeps me going, and it would be disingenuous if I didn't also say rage. People are so surprised when I say that because I'm a very happy person. What I see happening in our country, when I see our suicide rate of young people in this state on the climb, when I know that we have more uninsured children than we had last year in Utah, when I know that families are living in fear because they're afraid of what's going to happen because of their immigration status, or feeling like the job market is changing so rapidly that they can't keep up… that motivates me in a way that is palpable and if I didn't kind of force this energy out into the world I don't know what it would feel like.

ON WHAT'S ON HER GROUP CHATS

Usually it's about planning fun and having fun. I have a group of female friends that have named ourselves the Ambush (a group of tigers is an “ambush”). It started because a number of years ago, we pretty consistently had a brunch before the holiday season. So, we had this brunch. Ended up at Target. Target had these hysterical footie pajamas that were like cats, so we all bought them. They're all professional women and lead really busy lives, so it's about finding those opportunities to get together and have a great time. I do think that that's like uplifting and empowering for me because I don't have to think about politics.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ...

Not everyone has to run for office and frankly you can do a lot, not even on a board or a commission but working for a nonprofit or getting involved on an issue. And if you look at the women in particular, but we have great men too, running for city council all across this county, there is an incredible shift happening where people are just like, “no, I'm qualified, I'm going to get out there and I'm going to do it because I can learn and I can listen.” I also think people forget that like you should ask people who represent you to do something, and that sometimes it's really simple.

WHAT'S ON HER BOOKSHELF

Prisoner by Jason Rezaian.
(I had the opportunity to hear him speak about his
experience in an Iranian prison.And I just picked it up.)

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Keeping up with the news.

SHE'S OBSESSED WITH ...

It's Lizzo. The song, Like a Girl, is a great place to start. But really when Good as Hell came out, it's my morning alarm. I listened to it this morning. Every morning that's the first thing that I hear. Her energy is insane. And the talent is off the charts.

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