This story was first published by The 19th Yolenna Regmi was on a mission. The 19-year-old college student from Nebraska was at the Capitol to lobby her representatives — all of them Republicans — for reproductive health. She cares deeply about comprehensive sex education and wants more access to abortion, including in red states like hers. “I’m here, and I’m very passionate about what we’re doing,” she said. Regmi spoke to three Republicans’ offices throughout the day.
All along, congressional offices were doing the day-in, day-out work of meeting with constituents and advocacy groups who hoped to capture the Hill’s most precious resource: time and attention. Regmi, a student at Loyola University in Chicago, grew up in Papillon, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha as a multiracial woman — “a minority amongst a minority.” In high school, she saw how her classmates and friends “suffered” from abstinence-only sex education programs.