MADISON, Wis. — A working mom, wife and proud Wisconsinite — those are just a few of the ways Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez described herself.
During Women’s History Month, Spectrum News 1 political reporter Anthony DaBruzzi sat down with Rodriguez to find out how she has settled into the East Wing of the Capitol so far.
Rodriguez: That's a great question. I am a Wisconsinite born and raised. I'm a mom of two kids [ages] 13 and 16. I have been a nurse my entire career, and I've worked in health care, and making sure that I can give back to my community is something that has always been really important to me.
Rodriguez: It was never ever anything that I thought that I would do. I really was happy working in health care. I was really happy working as a nurse. [But] when I saw the pandemic and how the Legislature hadn't met for almost eight months during the pandemic, I felt strongly that we were putting politics before people. And I thought my background as a nurse, my background in public health, I worked for the CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer where I did national and international outbreak investigations, I felt that background and that experience would be valuable in the Legislature. So, I ran and I won for [Assembly] District 13, which is the western suburbs of Milwaukee, and was just so very excited to be able to represent that district.
Rodriguez: I wanted to have a bigger microphone. I wanted to be able to talk about the things that I was hearing in my very purple district, which was people want good health care, people want safe communities, people want good schools, and those are the kinds of things that I was hearing. And so, I wanted to make sure that people would have a voice statewide that could put those types of initiatives forward.
Rodriguez: Well, I think I would like to focus on really supporting Gov. Evers and his administration and his priorities, and, specifically, this office can, I think, be most helpful in making sure, again, we have affordable, accessible health care, that we are supporting small businesses, that we invest in workforce development, and, one of the things that's near and dear to my heart is I'm a big hiker, backpacker, biker, I love our state parks and trail system, and so we should be investing in that so that everybody gets to enjoy them.
Rodriguez: I am the fourth female lieutenant governor within Wisconsin, and I think it's so important. Representation is important. If people can see that there is a female lieutenant governor, I just talked to fourth graders the other day, and they asked me very interesting questions like what my favorite dinosaur [was]. It's a Stegosaurus, just so you know. But they were so excited to see somebody who looked like them within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, and if they can see that, they know they can be that, and that's what I think is important.
Watch the full interview above.